


tell my father (this is my life)

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: tell my father (this is my life) [13]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Allison, Asexual Character, Asexual Five, Bisexual Character, Bisexual Klaus, Character Development, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, F/M, Happy Ending, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, NO FUCKING INCEST, No Apocalypse, POV Alternating, Recovery, Redemption, Sibling Bonding, THE HARGREEVES FUCKING HELP EACH OTHER, Trans Character, Trans Diego Hargreeves, bisexual vanya, for all of you lovely people, siblings helping each other recover is my JAM, the main bits, the whole story in one convenient place, well most of the story anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 02:35:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18489523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: Things aren’t good, but Ben can’t remember them ever being good. He can’t remember normal. He can only remember being turned into a weapon before he ever had a chance to be a child.Five is an assassin and Allison’s throat will be damaged for a long time and Klaus’ boyfriend died and Diego’s not-girlfriend died and Vanya has world-destroying powers and Luther has the body of an ape and Dad is dead. Things are fucked up. They’ve always been fucked up.But the difference, now, is that Ben has hope. Klaus is sober for the first time since he was fourteen. Vanya knows about her powers and they’re figuring out how to work through them without Dad or her shady ex-boyfriend trying to control things. Allison’s planning on taking them all to meet Claire soon, once they’ve healed a bit more. Luther and Diego are still little shits, but you know, that can’t really be helped.(And, of course, the apocalypse has been averted by a single hug and a door opening. That’s a pretty important improvement.)-All the main sections of "tell my father (this is my life)," in one convenient place.





	1. Ben: cut it out and then restart

**Author's Note:**

> Contains the main chapters in this series, chronologically speaking. Any extra chapters will remain with original fics, such as the Five/Klaus prologues and the entirety of "running just as fast as we can." The ones here are just the main story, if that makes any kind of sense. Cool?
> 
> Sorry, it's just a lot easier to keep track of everything if I consolidate like this. Hope that's cool with all of you!

_Some of us laugh_

_Some of us cry_

_Some of us smoke_

_Some of us lie_

_But it's all just the way_

_That we cope with our lives_

- **_Some of Us,_ ** **Starsailor**

 

There is something unhuman about them, Ben knows. There is something unhuman about the fact that they respond to numbers, that they call a man who hurt them ‘Dad,’ that they were raised by a robot and an ape and shaped by missions and monsters rather than elementary school.

In some ways, their powers are the most human things about them. The fact that they have something that they can latch on and identify with, that they have a talent that she shape their lives around- that’s not strange. From what Ben can tell, that’s a far too human thing to do.

They are damaged people who don’t know how to cope- that’s obvious. The fact that Ben is still here, that he is all that Klaus has, that a dead brother is a better confidante than Klaus' living siblings- that says a shitton about how fucked up their lives are.

They were numbers before they ever had the chance to be people. Sometimes, they don't remember what it's like to be human. Other times, they are far too human and it hurts.

-

Sometimes, Ben remembers the things that Klaus remembers. There are memories of mausoleums and acid trips and kisses that Ben never had before he died. There are memories that are literal triggers, where guns are fired and deaths made and drugs downed.

Sometimes, it is nice to have this view into his brother’s mind, to be able to understand what makes Klaus tick. It’s a nice kind of intimacy, a connection to his brother that reminds Ben of what it was like to be alive and be able to touch the world.

Other times, it just makes the monsters under Ben’s skin itch.

- 

The thing about the Hargreeves are they’re all damaged and they don’t always seem to realize it.

Klaus and Vanya were left behind. Allison doesn’t know what parts of her world are real. Luther was sent up to the moon for four years that meant nothing, in the pursuit of approval he was never going to get. Diego’s girlfriend is dead and so is mom and his powers can only lead to destruction. Five spent forty years in the Apocalypse and has killed more people than the Umbrella Academy probably ever saved.

And yet- none of them really try to understand each other and the kinds of damage that were dealt to each of them, in their own way. They don’t try to understand that people have different ways of coping. Diego lashes out, Allison pretends, Vanya forgets, Klaus shoots up, Luther clings to the past, and Five...well, fuck, what _doesn’t_ Five do?

Ben has spent the past six- no, the past twenty nine- years watching his siblings tear each other apart in some attempt at feeling more human. None of them have ever really seemed to realize that they are all just reacting to the same kind of damage in different ways. They fight and lash out and rarely ever reach out to each other.

His siblings don't really know how to do  _healthy_ relationships, how to properly reach and empathize with each other. Ben can't blame them, though, considering how little sympathy Dad taught them.

-

When Ben tells Klaus that he knows that Luther would come after him and try to save him no matter what, he knows that he’s lying. He remembers the time that Klaus spent locked up and tortured in that hotel room. He remembers the fact that nobody came. 

Ben remembers a lot. (When you're dead, there's not much else to do.) He remembers Klaus' resignation about being left behind, his escape from assassins only after having his mind nearly turned upside down by withdrawal and the appearance of the dead. He remembers Klaus grabbing the briefcase and not giving two shits as to where it would take him, as long as he ended up somewhere that wasn't  _here_.

Ben remembers Dave, distantly. His connection to Klaus was somewhat strained during that time, due to the difference in timelines, but he remembers. He remembers what it felt like to be in love, to be willing to go to war for someone else.

(Ben knows that Klaus only came back because Dave died. He would have stayed. There is nothing for Klaus here, in the present.)

- 

There’s still that fucking umbrella tattoo on Ben’s arm, even now that he’s dead. There’s no way to get it removed, just like there’s no way to get his memories or the monsters under his skin removed.

Ben remembers. That’s what sucks so much about being dead: he remembers, and there’s almost no point. He can’t do shit to stop people from falling apart. All he can do is to offer advice and to try and stop Klaus from making shitty decisions.

He stays with Klaus, tries to stop him from making the stupidest fucking decisions, and often fails.

That is, of course, until the moment where he finally  _does_ feel useful.

The moment he shoves Klaus, that he picks up Diego after a fight with one of the time travelling assassins, his memories start to feel less pointless. For the first time in six years, he can do something.

And this gives him the strength to change things.  
  
-

When they find that Luther has locked Vanya up, Ben remembers the mausoleum. He remembers the years of being trapped. He remembers how helpless Klaus felt, how the nightmares haunted him for ages. And now he knows that Vanya must have gone through the same thing, that Dad fucked her up just as badly because of her powers as Dad did Klaus.

And Ben can’t watch this happen again.

“Klaus,” he says, “Get her out.”

Klaus jerks in his direction. “I can’t do that,” he hisses, “Luther’s blocking the way.”

“Luther’s one man,” Ben says, “And no one else wants to leave her in there. Stand up for her. Be a good man.”

Klaus clears his throat. “Luther,” he says, and nearly flinches when Luther turns to look at him. Great omen. “Let her out."

Klaus’ strength has never, ever been confrontation. His strength has always been a quiet endurance, a desire to run, a desire to escape. The moment he got out of the Academy he ended up getting high out of his mind and he hasn't been even close to sober until the last couple of days- that's how fucking dedicated Klaus is to keeping his brain away from any ghosts save Ben, who's too stubborn to let him go. Klaus has fought to keep the ghosts away any way possible, even if that meant self-destruction. He's got the strength to do this, but Ben's not entirely sure if he knows how to use it.

"We can't let her out," Luther says, "She hurt Allison. We can't let her hurt anyone else."

"We've gotta forgive her," Ben says, "She was scared and she lashed out. Everyone in this room has done that."

“It’s five votes to one,” Klaus says, somewhat reaffirming Ben's point.

"Five votes?" Five asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah," Klaus straightens when he finally seems to realize that no one else has registered Ben's words because no shit, they haven't. “Ben says to let her out.”

Luther's lips thin, and Ben's practically a pacifist with how much _he_ hates violence, but he kind of wants to smack that look off of Luther's face. "You've got not proof that Ben agrees with you."

Then, to Ben's pleasant shock, Diego says: "I believe Klaus, and he's right anyway. She's our sister, Luther, we've gotta give her a chance."

Allison nods and holds up her notepad, which reads,  _THEY'RE RIGHT. LET HER OUT._

Ben does have sympathy for the way Luther's face crumbles. "But she hurt you," he says quietly, and Allison shakes her head and taps her finger against her notepad. Then she steps forward and this time Luther steps just enough out of the way for her to get to the door and pull on the handle. She opens the door and Vanya tumbles out, a sob on her lips. “I’m sorry,” she’s mumbling, and she’s fucked up, but she doesn’t have to apologize. She doesn’t have to apologize for not knowing how to control her powers because she was never taught.

Ben crouches down next to her. He knows that he can’t touch her, that he can’t interact, but she’s his sister. He doesn’t have very many memories of talking to her. All he can remember is her at the backs of rooms, voice quiet but strict, her long hair obscuring her eyes. “It’s okay,” Ben says, wishing she could hear. “It’s going to be okay.”

No one hears him. No one ever does.

Except for, well, Ben’s favorite dumbass in the world. Klaus crouches down with him and places a hand on Vanya’s shoulders, because Ben’s memories of the mausoleum are just Klaus’s filtered memories. Klaus knows the feeling of being trapped in a room, of not being confined with only your powers and being unable to escape.

(And, to be honest, Klaus has always been a bit too kind for his own good. He likes to pretend he isn’t, because the last time one of them was too kind it got Ben killed, but Klaus really shows it in instances like this.)

“Vanya,” Klaus says, voice soothing. His voice curls around his words in that gentle way of his, the way that makes you feel like he _understands_. (And in this case, it really does.) “Can I give you a hug?”

Vanya jerks out a nod and Klaus pulls her into said hug. He pats her hair almost like he’s patting a small, terrified animals, but it seems to work. Vanya breathes, and the world trembles slightly but doesn’t collapse. “It’s okay,” Klaus says, repeating Ben’s words, “It’s gonna be okay, sis.”

Ben puts his hand on Vanya’s shoulder, and this time, it doesn’t go through. Klaus is sober enough, their connection strong enough, that he stays. Ben can finally touch his siblings.

Vanya lets out a shuddering breath and Klaus just stares at him over her head. “Ben?” she asks, and Ben grins. 

When Vanya speaks, the world shakes just a little bit with each word out of her mouth. Ben can see Luther’s eyes narrowing in the corner, the way his body seems to flinch forward with each reverberation, but nothing gets damaged badly so Luther stays put. “Thank you,” she says, then looks up at Allison without letting go of Klaus. She can't meet Allison's eyes, but she still says, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

Allison shows Vanya her notebook. IT'S OKAY, it says, and Ben can feel Vanya's shoulder shaking under his hand. A few of the spikes inside of the room detach from the walls and bury themselves in the ground, but otherwise Ben just focuses on Klaus' hand continuing to pat Vanya's back, the unmistakably 70s tune he's humming quietly to Vanya's hair.

Maybe they can make this work. 

-

Vanya falls asleep in Klaus' arms, exhausted from the day, and they carry her upstairs to bed.

Things aren’t good, but Ben can’t remember them ever being good. He can’t remember normal. He can only remember being turned into a weapon before he ever had a chance to be a child.

Five is an assassin and Allison’s throat will be damaged for a long time and Klaus’ boyfriend died and Diego’s not-girlfriend died and Vanya has world-destroying powers and Luther has the body of an ape and Dad is dead. Things are fucked up. They’ve always been fucked up.

But the difference, now, is that Ben has hope. Klaus is sober for the first time since he was fourteen. Vanya knows about her powers and they’re figuring out how to work through them without Dad or her shady ex-boyfriend trying to control things. Allison’s planning on taking them all to meet Claire soon, once they’ve healed a bit more. Luther and Diego are still little shits, but you know, that can’t really be helped.

(And, of course, the apocalypse has been averted by a single hug and a door opening. That’s a pretty important improvement.)

But what gives Ben the most hope? It’s that Vanya, for the first time, is at least a little included and understood. She sleeps cuddled with Klaus that first night, and Ben thinks it may be the first time any of his siblings have _ever_ gotten any platonic cuddling in.

(He's pretty glad that it's happening. His siblings are all emotionally stunted and cuddling with each other shows that at least some level of progress is being made in their relationships with each other and the world. They really need it.)

-

There is no apocalypse. Tomorrow comes and goes and the world doesn’t end. 

Vanya goes to her concert and the world doesn’t fall apart with the world; instead, it sings. The air in the theatre trembles, but the people sit, spellbound, and the Hargreeves siblings watch from the balcony. (And Ben is there, in his own seat, because Klaus made sure to save him a seat.)

They’re not really dressed up, save Allison and Klaus, who despite the world almost ending can't resist a bit of flair, but Vanya looks up at them after she plays her final note. There is a smile on her lips, and a note of pride on theirs.

So yes, they're still fucked up, but they are proud of each other and what they've accomplished.

This is a step to healing. This is something they never accomplished when Dad was alive and Five was gone and the Umbrella Academy was slowly crushing them. 

Right now, they're trying to be the family they never got to be. It's about thirty years too late, but it's important.

-

Going forward, Vanya still gets angry. She still doesn’t understand, sometimes, and they have to call her back to her body and away from her crushing power.

Vanya has problems, yeah. She takes awhile to be able to look Luther in the eyes, which is incredibly fucking understandable after what Luther did. But to Luther's defense, he does try to make things up to her. He eventually apologizes- the first time Ben thinks he's ever heard the man say "sorry"- and Vanya begins to really talk to him and allow him back in. (Though, admittedly, it takes her  _far_ longer to let him touch her. Ben's not sure why, but he has the feeling that it has something to do with how Vanya ended up in the room in the basement.)

But despite all this, she definitely doesn’t want to destroy the world. She hasn’t been pushed that far. They have brought her back from the edge, and it's kept both her and the world safe.

Vanya can breathe, now. That’s enough.

-

It takes a few days, but then Klaus finally gets sober. His fists glow blue, and everyone gets to meet Dave, and now Klaus can touch Dave and-

The world finally feels like it can heal. Yeah, Ben might still be dead, but now he can talk to his siblings for a little while at a time.

They can really start over, now. They can build the family that Dad kept them from having, a family with the seven of them and Pogo and Mom and one niece who's going to have five uncles and and aunt who will love her until the end of time.

Ben's looking forward to this.


	2. Klaus: until the morning comes around (I must be good for something)

_Darling, Have you ever not pulled things from the wreckage?_

_Are you tired? Do your arms hurt?_

_Who offers you honey when you need it?_

_Who lets you rest?_

**-Upile Chisala**

 

The day of the non-end of the world, Diego sits Klaus down for a talk. “Vanya felt Ben yesterday,” Diego says, “Which means you’re sober,” and Klaus nods, giving him a lazy grin.

“Most sober I’ve been since I started drugs,” Klaus admits.

“And why, after sixteen years, have you finally decided to get sober?” Diego asks, and he seems to genuinely care. That’s a nice feeling, Klaus must admit, after years of his siblings treating him like he’s just a bit too far this side of crazy town.

“Let’s just says there was a special someone,” Klaus says, and Diego raises an eyebrow.

“What was her name?” Diego asks.

Klaus smiles at the flicker out of the corner of his eye that he knows will become Dave’s ghost within the next few hours. “His name was Dave,” he says. "We fought together at A Shau."

“Well, then,” Diego says, “He must have _really_ been special to be able to put up with all your shit.”

Klaus can't help but smile. "He really was. He was beautiful, and kind, and vulnerable, and strong. The perfect guy." 

-

Klaus really gets to know Five a bit better after the non-end of the world, and most of it happens in public places where Five gets mistaken for his son. It even happens at Vanya's concert, where the woman sitting behind them comments on how cute Klaus' son is.

And to be honest, this mistaken identity is something that Klaus will _always_ take too much pleasure in, and hey, who can blame him? Without drugs, life’s inherently less amusing. He’s taking pleasure where he can get it.

And speaking of pleasure- Dave. Fucking Dave. Dave’s still dead, but Klaus can talk to him, now, and on good days, can touch him for up to hours at a time.

And of course, this isn’t something that Klaus gets to keep to himself. Introducing the love of Klaus’ life one by one to Klaus’ family is a _trip_ , not gonna deny. The first to get to meet him is Ben, who gives a small speech about only wanting Klaus’ happiness and some shit like that. Dave takes it in stride, a small smile on his face the whole time, and promises not to break Klaus’ heart again (because, you know, _dying_ kind of has a tendency to break your lover’s heart). Ben nods and continues on whatever he does half the time when he’s dead, and Dave follows them around for the rest of the day, absolutely loving Klaus’ family’s antics.

Dave tells Klaus that night, the two of them standing in Klaus’ old bedroom, “Your family’s pretty great.”

Klaus raises an eyebrow. “They nearly caused the apocalypse three days ago and have spent thirty years being more emotionally stunted than a teaspoon.”

“Well, considering the fact that the day I came out my Mom kicked me out of the house, I’ll take yours anyday,” Dave says, “They do seem to love you, in their strange way.”

Klaus thinks about Vanya, who sleeps cuddled with him half of the nights. He thinks about Ben, who keeps him from making the stupidest decisions. He thinks about Diego, who’s been helping keep him sober since the not-end of the world. He thinks about Allison, sharing her clothes with him without a fuss. He thinks about Five, who’s been grousing less and less about being mistaken for Klaus’ son. He even thinks about Luther, who’s fucked up but is trying harder nowadays, even bringing up the rather foolish idea of a Family Game Night.

“Yeah, they really do,” Klaus says, “And I love them too.”

“Can’t wait to properly meet the rest of them,” Dave says, “Your stories about all of them definitely paint an interesting picture.”

“That might take awhile,” Klaus says, “You know, ‘cause none of them are dead yet.”

Dave puts a hand on Klaus’ and links their fingers together. “I believe in you,” he says, voice firm, eyes hopeful. “You’ll be able to make it so that we can all talk to each other. Your powers are beautiful, love, just like you are, and I believe that you can do anything.”

Klaus’s heart feels like it just might burst, and it’s not from the drugs. He had almost forgotten what life could feel like, with Dave in front of him, talking to him in the praising way no one else ever has. “You’re gonna get to meet them soon,” Klaus says, and he somehow believes this impossible idea.

-

Introducing Dave to Ben was easy- they’re both dead. The shocker really comes when Klaus’ hands glow blue and suddenly his entire family can see Ben and Dave, just like Dave had predicted. Ben instantly goes around and hugs everyone, while Diego takes one look at Dave, still in his war vest, and says, “This must be your  “special person,” Klaus.”

Dave smiles that beautiful smile of his. “You said that, love?” he asks, and Klaus nods.

“Lemme introduce you to my siblings,” Klaus says, and grabs Dave’s hand. Dave smiles at him, flashing a smile missing a tooth from a nasty fall as a kid, as Klaus drags him around to meet everyone. “First off we have Diego, aka Number Two, the most emo knifeslinger momma’s boy you’ll ever meet.”

“Oh, fuck off, Klaus,” Diego says even as he shakes Dave’s hand, ignoring the large bloodstain on Dave’s shirt under his vest. “Nice to meet you, man. Has Klaus told you that he nearly fought an entire bar of war vets over a picture of you?”

Klaus raises an eyebrow at Diego even as Dave says, “No, he hasn’t, but I’m definitely looking forward to him telling me that.” He hadn’t thought that Diego had made the connection between the photo and the bar and his comments.

“And Vanya, my favorite,” Klaus says, his words casual despite their importance. He’s not sure who his favorite is- most of his siblings have a claim to the title- but he probably relates most to Vanya, so there’s plenty of weight behind his words.

(And he also knows far too well that she needs compliments and validation. After a lifetime of being pushed aside, of being belittled when you’re not being ignored, any compliment can make your day. He has Dave for that, but Vanya has no one at all.)

“He’s lying,” Vanya says, but her small smile and the flush in her cheeks speaks to her happiness at Klaus’ comment. “His favorite’s Ben.”

“She’s only half-wrong,” Ben says from where he’s busy hugging Allison, who doesn’t quite seem ready to let go of Ben. “We’re both Klaus’ favorites.”

Since both Allison and Ben are busy, Klaus moves on to the next sibling- which just happens to be Luther, who Klaus always had a hard time describing to Dave. Dave had gotten the concepts of time travel and hypnosis and curving weapons easily, but the idea of going to the moon? Not so much.

"This is Luther, the big guy," Klaus says, gesturing to him. "He's, uh, well..."

"A bit out of this world," Five mutters, a shit-eating smirk on his face, and Klaus nods.

"Yeah, let's go with that."

Dave just nods and offers out a hand. "Super strength, right? Like Superman."

"Don't go giving him an ego," Diego says, "He's already got enough of one."

Now, that Klaus can pretty well agree on, so he pretty easily moves on to the next sibling. 

“And this is Five, the only one of us not to choose a name. Thinks he’s above it and all.”

“I’m fifty eight,” Five complains, “I’m a bit past the childish point in my life at which I choose a name.” But then he turns to Dave and some of the sharp edges soften from his expression. “Welcome to the family,” Five says, “We need a bit of normal around here.”

Klaus nearly wants to protest that Dave’s anything but normal- he’s a wonderful man who accepted Klaus for what he was and is, you know, a guy who died in 1969 and is currently being projected by Klaus’ supernatural connection to the dead realm, but then he realizes just how pointless the argument would be.

Dave shakes the kid’s hand. “Nice to meet you too,” he says. “You’re the time-travelling assassin, right?”

Five nods, a small but approving smile on his face, as Ben moves on to the next sibling, thus freeing up Allison for a greeting.

"Allison, the only one of us with common sense," Klaus says, knowing that his statement is only mostly true but enjoying the affronted looks on Luther, Five, and Diego's faces to say otherwise.

"Pleasure to meet you, Dave," Allison says, reaching out to shake Diego's hand. "Klaus has mentioned so much about you."

Which is a veritable lie, as Klaus has only told his living siblings (other than that one convo with Diego) that he was summoning his boyfriend and that they were to be polite, but Allison's always been the charmer. Klaus does appreciate, after all, the way it widens Dave's smile a bit. "I'm glad to hear that he did. He's said a lot about you too, you know. You have a daughter, I believe?"

But instead of responding, Allison blinks. “Klaus, they’re both gone,” she says, and Klaus realizes that his powers have stopped working strongly enough that the others can see Ben and Dave. He's gonna have to build up his strength so they can spend longer together.

He nods. “Alright. Well, glad you guys got to see ‘em.”

"Glad I got to meet them as well," Dave says, smile gorgeous.

"Yeah, thanks for the hugs," Ben echoes.

-

Being sober’s kind of a bitch. After all, Klaus has been in and out of rehab at least seven times without it ever working. There are plenty of days where having Dave and Ben by his side are almost not enough, days where the dead aren’t enough to keep the pain away.

On those days, he’ll seek out one of his other siblings. Most often it’s Vanya, whose quiet voice is gentle and who understands burying yourself into something that will push the world away. Often she’ll pull out her violin and play, and Klaus will sit on the table and watch as the pots and pans spin around the room, almost recreating that “Be Our Guest” scene from Beauty and the Beast as they dance and float in accordance with the music.

Sometimes, when Vanya’s busy or Klaus just doesn’t want to bother her, he’ll seek out Diego, who will engage him in some rather dangerous activity or investigation that will keep his mind off of the itch in his veins, and sometimes it’s Five, who will take them both to the mall to talk to Delores or carry on some conversation about the 1960s and 70s, which Five has visited a few times on his missions.

Once, he finds Luther and goes dancing to a club with him. It’s honestly kind of fun, watching Luther’s uncoordinated dancing under that overcoat of his, and it’s the kind of bonding activity that they did _not_ get to do that night of the rave. Tonight, though, Luther is more focused on hanging out with Klaus, not just drinking away his own problems, and it’s a good time.

Once, Klaus talks to Allison, and she offers to use her raspy voice to start a rumor that will erase his drug addiction. He understands what it means to her to offer. He knows how much she hates her power, the way it impinges on her sense of reality.

(In a way, her refraining from using her power is kinda like him trying not to use drugs. It would be so easy to use these two paths to help themselves, to relieve the pain they feel, and it takes such effort not to.)

“Thank you,” Klaus says, “But I’ve gotta do this on my own. Be strong, you know?”

Ben is smiling at him from the sofa and Dave shoots him a thumbs up, and Klaus' chest warms.

-

Things get real interesting when the rest of his family can see Ben and Dave. He can’t pull his old tricks of counting Ben in on things that he didn’t agree to, but that’s a small price to pay for Ben’s happiness at being able to sometimes interact with his siblings.

-

Klaus drops into Diego's room one day. Diego's had an obviously bad day, shown by the way his stutter started acting up a bit earlier, and Klaus doesn't know what's happening.

Klaus has never been known for logical entrances or social tact, so when he plops down on his brother's bed, looks his brother in the eye, and says, "You know, you've gotta tell me about that detective someday," it's not that strange.

And Diego, on the other hand, has never been easily disturbed either, so he responds just as casually. "Yeah, someday," he says.

The next thing out of Klaus' mouth is unexpected, even to him. "Maybe I can even find her for you." It takes a lot of effort to say, but they're doing a bit better, now. The offer doesn't scare him as much as it might have a little while ago. 

Diego's eyes go wide. "Seriously? You'd do that?"

"We've had a shit time, that's for sure, but yeah, man. You're my brother."

Diego leans forward and Klaus suddenly finds himself with his brother's arms wrapped around his shoulders. "Thank you, man," Diego mutters into Klaus' shoulder, and Klaus grins.  _This_ is what he wants. He wants a family that appreciates and supports each other.

-

Klaus met God once, and she didn't much like him. Klaus can't really bring himself to really care, not when he has his boyfriend and his siblings by his side, without the Apocalypse and Dad weighing over their heads. He's actually rather glad that God sent him back to earth, where he can spend time helping his siblings move forward and using his powers for good rather than for whatever his father wants.

('Cause, you know, fuck that guy. Dad fucked them all up real bad and the literal only thing he can find to thank Dad for was getting the seven of them together as babies. Everything after that- he fucked up real hard. Klaus doesn't miss him at all.)

-

Klaus spends a day trying to nail the door to the basement shut, and he can't quite do it. Turns out being raised by a billionaire who only takes you on missions to stop burglars doesn't really teach a boy how to properly do construction work.

Vanya helps out, though, humming an old favorite song of Klaus and Dave's that doesn't lock the basement door but utterly destroys the room she was trapped in. Then she goes to the mausoleum with him and uses her powers to block up the entrance to the cellar that Klaus was locked in.

"Have I ever told you that you're awesome?" Klaus asks her that night at dinner, and Vanya's smile is a bit sharp but it's still there.

"Maybe once or twice," she says.

"I've gotta tell you that more often," Klaus says. "Because damn, I wish I'd realized it earlier."

"I'm okay with that," Vanya says, her smile widening just a little bit.

-

The night before they're all set to head to California to meet Claire for the first time (three weeks after the Not-End of the world), Ben has the brilliant idea to turn music on in the main room. For the first time in their lives, the seven of them- Klaus' powers are holding up, and they're  _going_ to hold up, he swears it- are here. 

And then there's also Dave, eternally here with Ben nowadays. Through Klaus' powers, Dave becomes a dance partner for everyone, though he saves most of his dances for Klaus, of course.

The eight of them trade off partners constantly, and for once in the life of this mansion there is plenty of laughter and smiles. The music changes from piano to 70s to rap to show tunes to pop and everything in between, and thus the dancing does too.

(There's even alcohol, which Klaus stays far away from while Five drinks a little too much of it.)

It's incredibly silly and stupid and just a little too wonderful, getting to spend time with his family as if they're normal and not bizarre creatures. Sure, they're dancing in a mansion and Vanya's powers are sending a hundred tiny lightbulbs circling around under the roof in time to the music and Five keeps jumping through space with his dance partners and- okay, so they're not normal. But they're happy, and that's the good thing.

Klaus wouldn't give this night, these people, up for anything.


	3. Vanya: bigger than these bones

_We wear our_ _traumas the way the guillotine wears gravity;_

_our lovers' necks are so soft._

- **Andrea Gibson**

 

Vanya's known that she's bi since she was fourteen, when she was watching MTV and realizing that she kept finding herself staring at Britney Spears’ chest just as much as Justin Timberlake's biceps.

But she never came out. (There was no one to come out to, after all, even if she'd wanted to. No one would care enough about her to reject or accept her.)

-

Before Vanya met Leonard, she had a girlfriend. Her name was Jeanine Xi, she loved dumplings and dancing and kissing Vanya, and she hated Reginald Hargreeves more than any of Vanya's siblings ever did.

(It didn't last.)

-

There was a car crash, Vanya remembers. Vanya had forgotten to take her meds that morning. She and Jeanine were arguing about something minute and unimportant- maybe where they were going to dinner, maybe the election, she thinks- and the song _Highway Don't Care_ had come on the radio-

And suddenly the car careened off the road.

(In the investigation afterward, the police noted that while Jeanine had died on impact, there was barely a scratch on the passenger seat occupant. A strange, sad accident, they’d thought, looking at the small woman staring at the hospital wall.

Poor girl, they'd thought, how tragic.)

-

How many times in the years from age twenty four to age thirty did Vanya wish that she had Klaus’ ability? How many times did she wish she could see Jeanine again, that she could only tell her girlfriend that she loved her one more time?

(Too many times. Too many nights spent staring at her bottle of meds, thinking about how tragedy follows her like the paparazzi follows her siblings.)

-

It's in that prison cell in the basement that Vanya realizes how exactly Jeanine died. She looks back on the tragedy of her own life and feels her heart rip itself apart again.

She screams, begs to be let out, because she's terrified, not just of the cell but of herself. Vanya can't trust herself. Her emotions have killed people, both innocent and not. She has to escape but she also has to learn how to get things under control.

 _I'm sorry,_ Vanya says as Allison opens the door to that prison, and she's not just apologizing to Allison. She's apologizing to Jeanine, to the girl who was the first person to make her feel human. To the girl who she loved.

She's begging for forgiveness from a ghost.

Klaus wraps her in his arms, humming an unfamiliar but soothing tune in her ear, and she clings to him.

She hasn't been held in so long. She's never gotten to cuddle any of her siblings, and the last time someone ever properly held her was Jeanine. Klaus's hug feels like a balm to a wound she didn't realize she had, the touch starvation she hadn't realized existed until this moment. 

-

It takes Allison and Klaus to help put her back together, to help her learn how to function with her powers without being paranoid that she'll destroy everyone she loves. Her siblings don't quite try to build her up in the same way that Leonard did, with anger, or that Jeanine did, with passive kindness.

They understand her in the way that Leonard and Jeanine hadn't, even though Leonard had believed that they were the same and Jeanine had definitely tried to understand her but had fallen short.

Klaus understands what it's like to be undervalued and trapped in that small room; Allison understands what it's like to have an enormous, world-altering powers and having to learn how to harness and control it properly. They both help her a lot in learning how to treat her powers in the best (not Good, Vanya doesn't think any of them have figured out how to be 'Good') way possible. 

Ben, surprisingly enough, is also quite helpful. She hadn't expected her dead brother to be able to provide much expertise, but when he quietly explains how he kept the monsters under his skin she starts to understand. 

They all have powers that could easily destroy things. Ben has his monsters, Allison her voice, Diego his weapons, Luther his strength, Five his time-warping assasinations, Klaus his connection to the dead, and Vanya?

Well, she has the apocalypse.

Vanya learns that it only took a single day, a single opened door to prevent her from creating the apocalypse. She knows that in another timeline, Five arrived a week ago to a world destroyed by her abilties.

That’s a pretty heavy piece of knowledge to be carrying around. Billions of deaths could have been easily caused by a Vanya who was just a little more isolated, a Vanya trapped and left behind for just a little while longer. 

She knows she could have done it. The guilt sits in the back of her mind, alongside the guilt she feels every time she sees the scar on Allison's neck.

There are some things that can't be erased with a change of choice. The past is the past, and sometimes you just have to live with your choices. 

-

Vanya starts to feel in control when there is music playing, when there is a violin in her hands or a song humming through her brain. She soon comes to realize that there are certain songs, though, that she can't control, songs that already have prior emotional associations. She associates some music with death and some with life, certain songs and genres with each of her siblings and each of her personal tragedies.

She can’t listen to Tim McGraw or Taylor Swift without feeling herself losing control, their voices reminding her too much of a car crash. The same thing goes for certain songs from the fifties, certain tunes she can only ever associate with her father.

She didn't really spend enough time around Leonard to associate him with anything specific, thank God. 

-

They were numbered in the order in which they'd discovered their powers. Luther from practically birth, Diego as soon as his pudgy infant arms could learn how to hold objects, Allison from the time she could form full sentences, Klaus at age three, when he started telling Pogo about seeing the woman telling him about how she was murdered next door, Five when he was, ironically enough, five, and had teleported from his room downstairs for dinner one night, and then Ben, who had started summoning the monsters at age six.

She was Seven, always last. Always unwanted, no power left to her.

Now, she knows that she would have been Number Five, if she'd been allowed to keep her powers, if she hadn't been forced to suppress her emotions, if Allison hadn't repressed her memories.

Vanya wonders what it would be like not to be Seven, to be last, last loved and last priority and always last wanted.

(She thinks she might be learning, now. When her and Klaus fall asleep, when Allison tells her stories, when Five and her eat marshmallow-peanut-butter sandwiches, when Diego and her go bowling, when Luther finally sets up that Family Game Night, when Ben and Dave pull her into a game of Chinese Checkers- she starts to feel like she's wanted. She's not the last priority anymore.)

-

She finds Klaus in front of the door to the basement, one day, a hammer in his hands and a screwdriver and container of nails by his knees. 

"What're you doing?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

"What's it look like?" he asks, waving his hammer around lazily, "I'm nailing the door shut."

Oh. Vanya understands that. She knows his reasons better than she could ever articulate. She crouches down next to him. “You need some help?” she asks.

"You know how do use a hammer?" Klaus asks, no real surprise in his voice.

"Yeah," she says, "But I can do you one better."

She reaches out her hand and feels her emotions well up in her. She hums Klaus and Dave’s song,  _Waterloo Sunset_ , and she destroys her cell and then destroys the mausoleum that trapped Klaus, destroys the parts of them that were trapped underground and in the dark. She starts to sing, voice warbling (her true musical skill is on the violin, not her voice), and every statue of Reginald Hargreeves on the estate explodes from her fury.

Vanya Hargreeves was never a hero. She was never a member of the Academy, never went on missions. She never learned how to use her powers to stop burglars and save people.

She's learning what she wants to use her powers for now, in the modern day.

The power rushes through her and she feels at home with herself. She realizes that she can use this power, this destruction, for good. She can use it to make things right, to help her and her siblings heal.

-

Vanya wrote a book, once, with a chapter dedicated to each of her siblings.

She remembers the titles she'd given each of their chapters. The Whisper. The Tragedy. The Killer. The Disappearing Act. The Loner. The Addict.

If she was to name them today, she thinks she'd call them something different. Something more hopeful.

She likes the stories that Allison tells, slow, rasping voice sounding out their adventures. Spaceboy. The Rumor. The Kraken. The Seance. The Boy. The Horror. (Okay, maybe that last one could change.)

And her, Vanya- the White Violin. Such a kind name for such a destructive power.

But as Allison points out one evening, as they're all watching the lights spin in accordance to Vanya playing "Think of Me," her powers are not just destructive. They can be used to manipulate the world around her, to provide happiness and light.

-

The night before they're set to get on the plane to L.A., Vanya finds herself dancing with each of her siblings (and Dave, who definitely seems like he's here to stay). First there's Klaus, who dances with a sort of clumsy grace, then Five, whose habit of taking his dance partners through spatial leaps actually is tons of fun to Vanya, and then Ben, who is actually a really good jazz dancer.

Then Allison's song-  _Dancing In The Moonlight_ by Toploader (the 2001 remix, to be specific) comes on, and Vanya finds herself dancing with her sister. Allison's rather talented at this whole thing- Vanya vaguely remembers her being in a musical in 2015- and Vanya finds herself being spun around the room. The lights around them spin with her as the music plays, providing an almost disco-esque effect for the night.

"Hey, sis, you mind keeping the lights from following us around?" Diego asks from where he and Klaus are dancing together. Luther's dancing with Ben and Dave with Five, who seems to be taking extreme amusement with Klaus' boyfriend's reactions when he spatial-leaps. Vanya realizes that they all have lightbulbs trailing them around the room, caused by her accidental powers.

(It's actually kind of beautiful, the way it lights up their faces and turns the room almost magical. The lights make everything almost kinder, in their way, casting everything in such a different light than usual.)

"Nah, leave 'em," Allison says, "The boys could use a little glitz."

"This boy's already got plenty of glitz," Klaus says, and Vanya can see the long black skirt and gold suit jacket that he wore to dress up tonight. All of her siblings made some sort of an effort, too- Diego's wearing a black button-down instead of a leather vest, Luther's actually  _not_ wearing his overcoat, Five's got on a blazer that doesn't have the Umbrella Academy logo on it, Ben's wearing a dark grey vest instead of his usual hoodie, Allison's wearing a red jumpsuit, Vanya's wearing her first chair tux, and Dave's wearing one of Klaus' old white button downs, the bloodstain on his chest long ago washed away on one of his material visits.

"That he does," Dave says with a warm smile, and Vanya's chest feels wonderfully tight at the grin her brother sends back at his boyfriend.  

-

While the Hargreeves siblings are in L.A. meeting Claire, Vanya meets a woman named Alyssa López, a elementary school music teacher who spends her weekends performing as a violinist in the local theater's seasonal theatre productions. Within the week Vanya's going on her first date, and the night is one of the absolute best she's had in years. Alyssa is snarky and witty and kind, with a passion for Sondheim that leads into a impassioned debate between her and Vanya, who argues that Lloyd Webber was the better Broadway composer.

(There is no accident, this time. Vanya hums Allison's song in her mind, keeping her powers at bay, and nothing happens. There will be no accidental explosions of power here, no tragedy.)  

When Vanya walks through Allison's front door, a stain of lipstick on the edge of her mouth, she finds Klaus, Ben, and Dave sitting in the living room, playing a game of...is that D&D?

"How was the date, sis?" Klaus asks.

"She was wonderful," Vanya says with a small smile, mind already racing to the next date. Maybe seeing a concert together? Maybe dinner?

"Wait, you're bi too?" Klaus asks, and Vanya raises an eyebrow.

"What of it?"

"That's awesome," he says, eyes gleaming with...is that pride?...as he holds out a hand for a high-five.

"What's bi?" Dave asks, hand casually resting under Klaus' hand on Klaus' thigh.

"Well, honey," Klaus starts, all too happy to explain the intricacies of sexual orientation to his 70s-era boyfriend, and a small smile grows on Vanya's lips. It's all so domestic and sweet, something none of them ever got as a kid.

(Is this what hope feels like? Vanya's so unused to the feeling that she has trouble placing it at first.)

Vanya sits down on the sofa next to Ben. "Mind if I play too?"

"You can help Dave out," Ben says, "He still doesn't know the rules."

"D&D was invented in '74- I'm not surprised," Vanya says, but then she looks at Dave. "You mind if I join your team?"

"You probably know more than I do," Dave says genially, and Vanya smiles.

"Alright," she says, "Who are you playing as?"

And the game goes on.

 

_Everything heals._

_Your body heals. Your heart heals. The mind heals. Wounds heal._

_Your soul repairs itself. Your happiness is always going to come back._

_Bad times don’t last._

**-Christiana Rutkowski**


	4. Dave: so you were never a saint

_You come around and the armor falls_

_Pierce the room like a cannonball_

_This is a state of grace_

_This is the worthwhile fight_

_Love is a ruthless game_

_Unless you play it good and right_

_This is the golden age of something good and right and real_

_-_ **_State of Grace_ , Taylor Swift**

 

Falling in love with Klaus was so easy in the heat of war. The fire in Klaus’ eyes, the magic in his lips, his fantastic stories, the kindness in his heart- there were a thousand and one reasons why Dave fell in love with the soldier who just so suddenly appeared in the middle of their encampment.

Klaus’ stories- by Jove were they wonderful. He got a nickname from the company as Tall-Tale because his stories. Very few had believed his stories about superhero siblings and time travellers and robots, and the amused gleam in Klaus' eyes had said that he didn't much care if people believed him or not.

Dave, though, had believed every word he spoke. Dave knew what a liar looked like- his father had never quite gotten that fibbing gleam out of his eye his whole life long- and that wasn't Klaus. He'd spent many a night talking to Klaus about his family, getting to know everything he could about such a brilliant man.

Is it any wonder that they'd fallen in love?

-  
  
Being back from the dead is a somewhat strange thing, especially given what year he was brought back into.

When he wakes up in the present day, Dave takes a little bit to adjust to the idea that though he's dead, he is able to talk and spend time with Klaus.

He soon learns that being dead has its advantages and disadvantages. It’s really easy to have a private conversation with Klaus, after all, but it's also kinda lonely as there's no guarantee of anyone save Ben at his side. He doesn’t breathe or eat anymore unless he feels like it, which is kinda weird, but he knows he can’t die again, though, which in its own strange way is reassuring. He had a good, honorable death in battle, and he thinks (with the exception of breaking Klaus’ heart) he went out pretty well.

So as long as he can spend the rest of his (undead) life with Klaus, he's happy with how things have gone.  
  
-

Klaus’ siblings are...well, a lot. Dave doesn’t think that there’s a word in the English language that could encompass everything that they are, with all of their habits and powers and the way they interact with each other. How exactly do you put into words a group of people that contain a thirteen-year-old time-travelling assassin, an astronaut with the body of an ape, an actress with a scarred throat, a woman whose violin can literally destroy the world, a knife-wielding modern day Batman with a stutter, a dead boy who can summon monsters, and, of course, Klaus himself, who's the only reason that Dave is here today as he can summon the dead. Dave's a decently intelligent guy, but shit, there's a lot to describe. 

Dave likes all of Klaus’ siblings for their own reasons. He knows Ben the best, of course, as he can always talk to him regardless of whether Klaus' powers are at their strongest or not. Ben’s kinda quiet, probably quieter than any of Klaus’ siblings save Vanya. He only really argues with anyone when Klaus, as wonderfully reckless as always, is about to make a stupid decision.

Dave's spent a decent amount of time with Vanya, considering the fact that the nights when Dave's not sleeping in Klaus' bed, Vanya's the one cuddling with Klaus. He appreciates the fact that Klaus and Vanya keep each other grounded, that they help each other deal with the effects of their powers.

(He especially appreciates the fact that Vanya destroys the mausoleum that Klaus had once told such a haunting horror story about, back in 'Nam.)

He's had one or two conversations with Allison, and she seems nice enough. She's rather protective of her siblings, which he can appreciate. (He didn't have any siblings back home, but the protective ties he built in 'Nam and in the army feel somewhat relatable.)

Diego's an ex cop who currently moonlights as a superhero, taking down criminals and protecting the innocents- Dave can definitely support that. He's a rather grumpy man, but considering the story Klaus mentioned a few days after Dave appeared, the one about his detective friend dying, Dave understands.

Five probably has probably had the closest experience to war out of any of the Hargreeves siblings save Klaus. Dave's heard some stories about his time in the apocalypse, about the forty years he spent there before the five years he spent on his assassin job. He's got nothing but sympathy for the horrors he knows that Five must have seen. 

(Dave heard the story, once, about how Five saw the dead bodies of his siblings in the future. He tries to imagine seeing Klaus' dead body and shudders. There are certain things that he wouldn't wish on his worst enemy, and the nightmares caused by something like that are one of those things.

The idea that Five had to see that the first time he turned thirteen, when he was still a child- Dave pities the poor guy.)

Dave's yet to have a one-on-once conversation with Luther yet, so he's got mixed feelings about the man. Dave's not one to make hasty decisions, so he's not going to pass judgement yet, but he knows there are some things that Luther's done that Dave has a hard time forgiving. Klaus  _did_ eventually tell him about the whole isolated-on-the-moon thing, so he does have a certain amount of sympathy for the first Hargreeves. But he still has his reservations, nonetheless.

In general, Dave has accepted that he’ll never truly know all the damage the Hargreeves siblings went through. He accepts that no matter what, there will always be memories too haunting to revisit. And he gets it- there are some things about his father and the things he did during his drunken binges that he'll never share with anyone. There are some cigarette burns that he will never explain, though he certainly gets closer with Klaus than he ever has with anyone else before.

At the end of the day, Dave just knows three things about this family and this time for certain. One, that he hates Reginald Hargreeves for the ghosts that haunt Klaus and his siblings’ eyes. Two, that while a lot of the future confuses him, soda still tastes just as good as it did back in Ohio.

And three, that he loves Klaus with everything he has.

-

Klaus’ lips in this time taste like something stale and strawberry rather than cigar smoke and alcohol. Dave’s gotta say that he kinda prefers it.

“What’s that on your lips?” Dave asks as they curl up in bed.

Klaus grins, showing off that somehow still perfect mouth of teeth. “Lipstick. You like?”

Klaus in heels, a dress, or a skirt is kinda awesome (and rather gorgeous) if Dave lets himself admit it. He never got to see men dressed like that back in small town Ohio or Vietnam, but dressing like that makes Klaus smile and there’s nothing Dave wants more than that. The lipstick is the same, too- it may be something Dave’s never seen on a guy, but Klaus has always been unique like that.

“It’s you,” Dave says, “Of course I do.”

"Aw, you charmer," Klaus says, leaning in to kiss Dave again.

-

When he’s not in the living world with Klaus, he dreams. He dreams of blood and the roar of gunfire and the stench of the battlefield.

Dave remembers dying. He remembers Klaus pleading for him to stay, his shouts for a medic. He remembers the sheer pain as the round hit his chest. 

Whenever he turns corporeal and changes his clothes, he has to stare at what’s left of the wound in his chest. Grace, Klaus’ mom, stitched him up a bit, but it’s kind of hard to find a reason to justify giving him blood or anything as he’s already dead. Still, it’s kinda nice not to constantly have to stare at the bloodstain or the gaping wound.

And, the most striking thing about the wound, whether bloody and gaping or stitched and clean, is that Klaus doesn't ever seem to care. His hand finds its way onto Dave's chest and torso just as easily as it does his back or arms or butt, caressing Dave's skin just as lovingly no matter where his hand ends up.

-

There are some aspects of this time that Dave doesn't quite get. Some of the music isn't quite understandable, and some of it is. He has no idea how to operate a computer or a cell phone, is confused by certain TV shows and societal expectations. Some of the slang could easily be Russian to Dave.

But Klaus is patient, explaining the future to Dave as patiently as he explained the army and Vietnam to Klaus. He talks Dave through the adaption issues, the technology differences, the change in society. He explains things like sexual orientation and iPhones and Netflix, and Dave will drink it in like a dying man (pun not intended, no matter how many times Klaus makes the same joke).

-

Dave hates having to watch Klaus' cravings and the days where more ghosts than just him and Ben show up. Dave knows that the pain that Klaus is going through is strictly just so that the two of them can be together, and he hates that he is the indirect cause of so much pain for the man he loves.

"You, dear," Klaus says when Dave voices his worries, "Are the most wonderful idiot I've ever met. I love you far more than I do the drugs." 

"But the ghosts that haunt you," Dave says. "They freak you out. They hurt you."

"They don't bother me very much when you're here," Klaus says, tapping Dave's knuckles with his fidgeting hands. Dave's always loved how much energy Klaus has, the way he never seems to stop moving. It's not a drug thing, either, Dave knows. "And besides, Ben and Vanya and everyone else are helping me out with the whole fear-of-ghosts thing. I'm getting better, Dave."

Dave smiles. "Just...let me help you as much as possible, okay? Whatever you need, I'm here."

"The fact that you're here is enough," Klaus says, then smirks. "But a kiss wouldn't hurt."

Dave leans in a little closer. "That's what I'm here for, love." Then they're kissing and it's just like old times, but this time without the fear of being caught.

-

So some nights are bad, full of nightmares and half-muted screams and Klaus shaking from bad cravings. There are midnights when Klaus and Dave will wake up and not know what year they're living in- Dave more than Klaus, but the war doesn't leave Klaus' brain either.

But other nights are actually good. There are nights were he and Klaus will make out for hours, where Klaus will take him on tours of the grounds and the city.

They go to a veterans' bar, once. It's not the one that Klaus ended up at after Dave's death (Klaus has filled him in on that story, and Dave's heart had broken a little thinking about the amount of pain Klaus must have been in), but it is one full of people who understand what Klaus and Dave went through in a way that the Hargreeves siblings don't entirely get.

Dave finds out about all the wars and conflicts that good ol' America has been dragged into since 'Nam, the conflicts in Iran and Afghanistan and Thailand and the Persian Gulf. It's kind of insane, just how much shit America's put itself into. Looks like the protests didn't really do much to stop America dragging itself into war.

There's a certain sense of camaraderie, though, with these men. Dave and Klaus can talk about the feeling of being gunned down, show off the scar on Klaus' thigh and the stitches on Dave's chest, discuss nightmares and flashbacks and the sense of uncertainty when waking up, and have people understand where they're coming from. It's almost freeing, being able to so openly talk like this.

Then there's one night where Klaus' hands glow, just as they usually do, and he promises that Dave and Ben should be corporeal for at least four hours. Ben puts on the music and Dave finds himself dancing with his boyfriend and the other Hargreeves siblings.

This night is a really good one. For every dance he has with a Hargreeve, he has another with Klaus. And as along with nearly everything Klaus does, he has a talent for dancing.

The number of things that Klaus can do is honestly astounding. Shoot a gun accurately, dance, commune with the dead, kiss, play chess- Klaus is incredibly talented at so much. If Dave was a less comfortable person, he'd probably be a bit jealous. Instead, he's just proud that the man he loves is someone so wonderful.

Dave finds himself dancing with Ben at one point, one dead man with another, and he's gotta admit that despite the strangeness of this whole evening, with Vanya's spiraling lights and Five's time jumps and Ben and Dave's, well, existence, this is better than any bar he danced in with Klaus in Vietnam. It's almost better than the vets' bar that they went to last week, if he's being honest.

Dave has never had a family before, and now he has one, for all of its quirks. And he can't help but love it.

-

When they get to L.A.- and it's insane, how many things are different and yet how many things are the same, his L.A. to the Hargreeves', and a week and a half into their visit to Klaus' sister's house, a new person joins them.

A young woman with a bloodstain in nearly the same place as Dave's used to be appears one day at the kitchen table. She's wearing a jacket and a gun holster at her waist, a badge on her chest splattered in blood.

"Nice to see you, Detective," Klaus says genially, setting down a mug of tea in front of her.

"I'm dead, aren't I," the woman says, taking the mug, and it's not even a question. She already knows what's going on.

Klaus nods. "Sorry about that, I am."

"If it makes you feel any better, ma'am," Dave says, raising a hand, "I am too. So is Ben, here." Ben waves, and the Detective's eyes widen.

"My boyfriend, Dave," Klaus says, gesturing to Dave. "He's from 1969."

"We met in 'Nam," Dave says, and the Detective's jaw drops.

"You fought in Vietnam?"

Dave nods. "Both of us did. I died on the front lines."

"And now he's back," Klaus says, jovial as if the subject didn't once break his heart, and Dave's pretty glad that they're able to move on. "Good times, right?"

The front door opens and Diego enters, newspaper in hand. Dave raises an eyebrow- he's never seen Klaus' grumpy brother reading the news before.

The newspaper doesn't really seem to matter, though, as Diego drops it as soon as he sees the woman. "Holy shit," he says, "P-Patch. You-you're here."

The detective- Patch, Dave guesses- smiles. "I'm pretty sure it was your brother's handiwork."

Diego smiles at Klaus and Klaus smiles back, and Dave is so fucking proud of his boyfriend. "Now, Dave and I have got plans today," Klaus says, despite the fact that they do not, in any capacity, have plans made. "So we're gonna let you two hang out. Detective, you should have about five hours being corporeal where Diego can see you, so make the most of it." Klaus grabs Dave's hand and pulls him out the door, mug still in Dave's free hand. Ben follows behind, hands in his pockets.

"Is she Diego's girlfriend?" Dave asks once the front door is closed, taking a sip of his tea. He doesn't experience hunger or thirst so he has no idea where the liquid goes, but he likes the taste so he continues to drink it. Can't really do any damage, can it?

"God if any of us know," Ben says with a snort.

"I just want the poor grump to be happy," Klaus says, and Dave smiles. Klaus is so kind, far kinder than the world to ask of him considering everything he's gone through.

Ben groans. "You too can't help staring at each other like you hung the sun."

"Well, he did bring me back from the dead, so..." Dave points out, and Klaus shrugs. Dave realizes that his wonderfully attired boyfriend is only wearing a long red skirt under a dramatic black coat and literally nothing else, but he doesn't blink. Klaus has a unique sense of style that he defines as much as it defines him, and Dave wouldn't ask him to change for nothing.

"All in a day's work, man," Klaus says with a grin, and Dave just has to lean in and kiss him. That's another new things about this time, too- the ability to kiss in the daylight, outside of the backrooms of bars and back alleys. Dave's gotta admit that he likes it better a lot better than hiding.

"So, what  _are_ your plans for the day?" Ben asks, clearly done trying to stop them. Dave's learned over the past month or so that that's kinda Ben's thing: unless it's a life or death situation, his resistance tends to be minute if existent in the first place.

"Oh, fuck if I know," Klaus admits with a shrug. "Thought it'd be more fun if we figured it out as we go."

"Do you have  _any_ idea of where we're going?" Ben asks, "Or even a G.P.S.?"

Klaus pulls his phone out of- well, Dave's not sure where, as he doesn't believe the skirt Klaus is borrowing from Allison has any pockets. "I've got Google Maps and a craving for donuts?"

Well, that's one craving Dave can get behind. He holds up his mug. "Can I bring this with us, or would you recommend leaving it behind?"

"Set it on the railing," Klaus says, gesturing to the wide banister lining Allison's front porch, and Dave obliges before returning his hand to Klaus'.

"Lead the way," Dave says with a smile.

"You're gonna regret that," Ben says, and Dave shakes his head, locking eyes with Klaus.

"Never will," Dave says, and it's the truth. He will never regret a thing, not when it comes to Klaus.

(Dave adores the man, _loves_ the man, too much to regret a goddamn thing.)


	5. Five: just a dead man walking tonight

_It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane._

**\- Philip K. Dick**

 

Five remembers all the books he read over his years stuck in the apocalypse. _The Chronicles of Narnia_ is one that sticks with him, now- specifically the final chapter of _the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ , where the Pevensies ended up trapped in their childhood bodies again after having lived twenty years in Narnia. He wonders if they felt as off in their bodies as he does in this child-like one.

Five's bones don't feel like his own. He is fifty eight years of experience and blood and heartache and loss shoved into the body of a child.

This body isn't _right_. It’s too small, too soft, the palms uncalloused and the face too smooth. That scar he got from killing Louis XVII is gone from his knee, the chunk taken out of his ear during his seventh year in the Apocalypse fully healed. He carries no marks of his years of experience.

He sometimes wonders if all the scars he’s gathered since he ended up in this young body constitute some insane attempt at recreating the scars he lost. The shrapnel, the alcohol binges, the gunshot - he knows he was more reckless than usual in his self-imposed mission.

(But some part of him wanted to reclaim some measure of experience on this body, to turn this child-like vessel into something approaching the weapon it used to be.) 

-

They say that isolation is one of the quickest ways to turn a person insane, and in certain ways Five relates a bit too closely to Vanya and Klaus’ childhood imprisonments. He wasn’t trapped in a single prison, a basement cell or a mausoleum, but rather the entire world was his cell. He was the only person alive in the entire world, entirely alone besides Delores.

Five sometimes wonders if he went insane, all alone in that giant prison.

(Other times, he knows he did.)

-

Now, in the modern day, the Apocalypse has been averted. With a hug and a push from the ghost of his brother, they got Vanya out of the basement cell and averted the greatest disaster in human history. Five's forty-five year quest is over.

And doesn't that just throw him the fuck off-center?

In some ways, Klaus was right when he diagnosed Five with an addiction. Forty-five years with only a singular goal tends to breed addiction in the brain, and _damn_ is his withdrawal hell.

He finds himself struck with a sense of perpetual aimlessness. Without a mission to guide him, without a goal in mind, he has no idea what he wants to do with his life, no real motivation.

Five saw the end of everything when he was only thirteen-years-old, but from the very first day he had the goal to stop what happened. He didn’t know how he’d do it, but he knew he would complete that mission. For forty years, he wasn't even entirely a man- he was a weapon with a single goal in mind.

Now, he has an entire life ahead of him, with the family he hasn’t known whatsoever. His siblings are alive. He has become so accustomed to death and destruction that life itself is honestly more shocking to him nowadays.

When the Apocalypse was on the line, he didn’t have much time or motivation to bond with his siblings. But now that the crisis has been averted, that he no longer has a mission to uphold, he just kinda wants to learn about his family again, to get to know the people he spend four decades trying to save.

-

Five often wakes up with a scream trapped in his teeth, blood staining his vision.

He knows that Vanya and Klaus sometimes sleep curled up together, keeping the nightmares at bay.

Five, on the other hand, returned Dolores to her shopping mall the day before the Apocalypse originally was supposed to happen, and now he has no one left to sleep with. He falls asleep and he dreams of empty wastelands and the screams of the people he's murdered, except this time they're not Marks- he’s pulling the trigger on his siblings, putting their dead bodies into the ruin of the world. He’s the one killing them, the one leading to their deaths.

Five is very much a hardened fifty-year-old man, but in some ways he is still that thirteen-year-old boy who happened upon the bodies of his siblings in their adult form, had to swallow back the horror at realizing what happened to his family.

He never had the chance to deal properly, to grow up in any sort of normal way. He is, emotionally, something beyond time and age, emotionally stunted and hardened at the same time. No socialization after age thirteen save that of a mannequin and eventually the Handler can do some massively traumatizing things to a person's psyche.

(In some ways, Five is just as separated from his siblings as Vanya was, as stunted as Luther or Diego, as divorced from reality as Allison, as scarred by war-torn dreams as Klaus, as touch-starved as Ben. He is nearly double their age and yet half them as well.)

-

They go bowling. It’s certainly not something Five ever would have suggested, but to be honest he’s not sure that any of them are particularly passionate about it, either. However, it does make for good neutral territory and a healthy outlet for competitive energy. They take up two lanes, with Allison, Dave, Luther, and Diego on one lane and Vanya, Ben, Klaus, and Five on the other.

It's honestly kind of fun, the utter competition half of them summon up. Luther and Diego compete, constantly riling each other up, while Five verbally pokes at both of them, Klaus eggs them on, Ben eats as many nacho fries as he can find, Allison watches in amusement, and Vanya quietly shows both of them up.

And all the while, Five watches with a scientist's eye. He tries to soak in as much information about his siblings as he possibly can.

Klaus and Dave can't seem to keep their hands off each other, their hands constantly brushing each others' arms and shoulders and backs. They sit on the bench by the lane with their sides pressed up against each other, and to all the world they look like any normal gay couple, not like a time travelling necromancer and his dead boyfriend from '69.

Allison watches all of them like a proud mother, which of course, she is. Five knows that they're just waiting for her throat to heal a bit more to go visit her daughter- his niece. He has a niece, isn't that an interesting development?

Luther, to be honest, really seems to be enjoying himself. His ape body is a bit awkward, but the sheer force of his throws tends to give him strikes, which allows him to keep up with Diego and, surprisingly, Vanya.

Five notes that nearly all of Vanya's balls give her spares, sometimes incredibly complicated ones that involve a 7-10 split. It only takes him a turn or two to realize, , with a certain pride, that she is humming a tune from Phantom of the Opera under her breath, thus converting the sound into precision telekinesis. Not a bad trick, especially considering how Diego's using his curving ability and Luther his super strength.

Ben is mostly quiet, but he can't seem to stop physically interacting with them all- high-fiving, hugging, shaking hands. He seems to be taking a lot of joy in being able to interact with them, which is understandable to Five. After all, from what he understands, Ben hasn't been able to even talk to them for the six years since he died.

(Five tries not to see himself in Ben's isolation, too, in the way he craves physical interaction with his siblings.) 

And Diego? Diego, well, he’s an interesting case, and most of Five's thoughts toward him have little to do with his bowling ability and more to do with how Five processes Diego mentally.

Diego had only come out a few months before Five disappeared, and though he’s unmistakably a man now, Five keeps fucking up in his own brain and misgendering the poor guy in his mind. He needs to get better at that, he recognizes.

Five knows what he's good at. He's a brilliant marksman, mathematician, driver, assassin, scientist, survivalist, and speed-reader. His powers are well-honed and he's plenty skilled at what the mechanical aspects of what he does.

But when it comes to communicating with others, to being able to interact normally with people? He keeps fucking up. Years of isolation have kind of fucked with his interpersonal skills. He's blunt to a fault and he keeps missing important cues.

Five really does love his siblings, for what it's worth. He spent forty years where his only motivation was to save them. He wants to get to know them in this time, to get to learn about how they've grown and who and what they love. He wants to know them better, to learn about everything he's missed.

He wants a fucking family. Is that too much to ask? 

-

That night, he gets shit-faced drunk.

(Let it not be said that Five has developed healthy coping skills. He tore apart time itself, killed dozens of people, just to save his family. Five is not a man who knows how to take things at a healthy pace, not a man who knows how to tell himself 'stop.')

He doesn't have Dolores anymore to help balance him out. She's back where she belongs, in that mall he found her in. He really hopes that that retail worker out her in that sequined dress that she wanted.

Five sighs into another swallow of his vodka. Dad was a shitty man, but at least he had good taste in alcohol. 

Five named her, you know? He never named himself, clinging to some remnant of his family, but he named _her_. Dolores- Spanish for  _pain._ For  _grief._ He named her after his family too, in a way.

Five clings. He clings to the memories of the Apocalypse like he used to cling to memories of his family. He remembers everything, every death, every empty street, and he can't let go. He doesn't know how to let go, how to be normal again.

Fuck, he's fucked up. He doesn't know how to make the world make sense again. He's just a too-old brain in a too-young body.

Vodka sounds like a  _really_ good idea right now. 

Diego finds him curled up on the floor of the laundry room, tucked into a back hallway on the third floor of the mansion with a bottle of vodka tucked between his knees. 

Diego crouches down next to Five, who looks up at him with bleary eyes. "Listen, man," Diego says, "I get it. You want to block it all out. But you can't do it this way. You may be fifty eight years old, but your body's only thirteen. You're gonna stunt your brain growth if you drink like this."

"And what does it matter?" Five asks. Because he doesn't have a mission anymore, or a future, or a past. Dolores is gone and he doesn't know how to be anything but a weapon, much less a functioning human person. "Even this drunk, I'm still more functional than any of you idiots. I could still fucking shoot you dead like this." 

"If you did," Diego says, prying the bottle from Five's hands, "I'd just get Klaus to let me haunt you."

Five hums, not really resisting Diego. What's the point, after all? "Good point."

"I often have them," Diego says, and Five stares up at Diego.

Everything about Diego is unmistakably masculine. Looking straight at him, Five almost never thinks of him in the wrong terms. But when he thinks about Diego, about their childhood, about the fact that Five used to have three sisters- that's when his thoughts get fucked up. His brain forgets, sometimes, who Diego really is, the gender that matters.

"I'm sorry," Five mutters, and Diego's eyebrow shoots up.

"About what?"

"I don't think about you right, sometimes," Five says, tapping his temple. "My brain forgets that you're not..." He sighs. "Nevermind. Not important."

Diego, just like Five, has never been able to let things go. "I came out right before you left, didn't I?" Five nods, and Diego sighs. "I don't like being misgendered, but I get your fucked up memories. As long as you're trying, that's what matters."

"For what it's worth," Five says, "When I'm looking at you, I can't forget. You're definitely a guy."

Diego gives him a crooked smile. "Thanks." Then he offers Five a hand. "Now, let's get you some water and a bed, why don't we?" Diego offers, and for once in his far too long life, Five doesn't argue. He just nods and lets Diego help him up and to his room. 

-

Five dreams of blood and of fire, of the whole damn world burning around his head and he just keeps running and running as his siblings scream and die around him-

He wakes up a few nights later to a hand on his shoulder. His first reaction is to lash out, to fling out his elbow into the fleshy gut of whoever's attacking him, but a gentle hand on his arm stops him.

"It's okay," Allison says, her voice all raspy, all wrong, and he blinks up at her.

He scowls. "I don't need you to baby me."

Allison rolls her eyes. "I'm not babying you. I know you're fifty eight and all, but I also know that there's a bunch of shit you haven't dealt with yet," Allison says.

"Pot meet kettle," he bites out, and he can't decide if he regrets it or not. Allison  _is_ just trying to help him, after all.

Allison doesn't flinch, though. "And I'm here for you, okay? We're all fucked up in our own ways, and we're all here for each other." She smirks. "I know you hate it, but we _do_ know some of what you're going through. We can help you, if you don't let your pride get in the way."

Five sits up, and he's so small, only half her height, but they have the same birthday. They're siblings through and through. He has to start learning to let people in, not blocking them off to maintain some semblance of the life he lived in the Apocalypse.

(Fuck, this isn't gonna be easy. But it might just be healthy- not that he's sure he'd be able to recognize healthy thoughts from a mile away, but the point still stands.)

"You want a sandwich?" he asks, and he's offering far more than a sandwich.

Allison smiles, and he knows that she knows what he's saying. "Of course," she says, letting go of his arm. "Coffee, too?"

He sneers. "I can't get a good fucking coffee around here."

Her smile sharpens. "We can go to that donut shop 'round the corner."

Five snorts. "I'm pretty sure we're gonna have to pick a new one. I have it on reliable authority that that particular donut shop is out of business."

Allison's eyes widen slightly but nods. "Alright, then. You got a suggestion?"

"A few," Five says, and holds out his hand to her. She looks at it with a raised eyebrow. "We can just jump there."

"In your pjs?" is Allison's only question.

Five looks her over- she herself is in a pair of flannel pj bottoms and a long-sleeved t-shirt that he's pretty sure is merchandise from one of her movies, but he can't be certain. He's never gotten to see any of them, after all- electricity and DVD players were hard to come by in the Apocalypse. "Why not?" he asks, arching a challenging eyebrow, and she shrugs.

"Alright, you've got a point. Just lemme grab a pair of sandals and a hoodie and we'll go." She slides off the bed and runs to the door, and Five just stares after her. This isn't exactly what he had planned for the night, but it's certainly not the worst thing he could be doing.

Ten minutes later, Five finds himself in a small cafe with his sister, a small smile on his lips as she tells him about her daughter.

Maybe Five can do this whole sibling thing better than he thinks.

-

The next night, Five finds himself not with a bottle of alcohol or a gun and a target but with two siblings in a booth with him at a local Bob Evans'. He, Diego, and Allison pig out on late-night breakfast food and stupidly synthetic but nostalgic-tasting mac n' cheese. 

They talk about everything and nothing, from Allison's movies to favorite foods to Claire to the future to Dolores to some of the sightseeing Five did on his time-travelling missions to the stock market to their somehow shared love of classic American romance novels. It's probably the best possible activity for the three of them to get to know each other, to bond better.

And sure, the conversation sometimes slows because of Allison's voice or because they've hit a bad memory for Diego or Five, but that comes with the territory. Even if Allison and Diego are better adjusted than he is, none of them are  _well_ -adjusted.

But the conversations are getting better. The three of them come back to the diner every few days, Luther even eventually getting in on things after a week and a half. Five is starting to understand his siblings a little better, is learning to let go of the Apocalypse and growing to understand the present. He's not Good, necessarily, but he's getting better.

-

They arrive in L.A. and it's nothing like the L.A. of the 1930s or the L.A. of the the Apocalypse- it's almost absurdly normal, the suburb that Claire and Brian live in.

They arrive at Allison's place and she starts to nervously pace as they get changed from airplane-clothes into something more presentable for Claire.

And Five decides to help her out a little. He's still not entirely certain on this whole "comfort" thing, but he's going to try his best.

"Everything's gonna be alright," Five says, placing a hand on her lower arm. "We all love her already and we've gotten better with our people skills lately."

Diego snorts. "You mean  _you've_ gotten better with your people skills.

Five rolls his eyes. "Don't deny you've done it too, mama's boy."

"Oh, fuck off," Diego says, but they've done the job. Allison's smiling and her shoulders seem a bit less tense.

Five's thoughts shift. Maybe he has a new mission, now: instead of saving his family, he's going to do his best to make them happy. He's going to help them out, make them comfortable and help them work out their shit too.

Yeah, that seems like a pretty good idea.

-

It’s inevitable that shit’s gonna hit the fan. They’re the Hargreeves. Vanya nearly caused the Apocalypse, Five was a legendary time-travelling hitman, Klaus is dating a man who’s been dead for forty years, Luther spent four years alone on the moon, Allison created an entire world around her own ambition using only her words, Diego is still a dagger-wielding superhero to this day, and Ben has literal monsters under his skin. Their family doesn’t do normal.

So when Cha-Cha and her new partner, a guy originally based in the 1800s named Jack, come tearing after them, it’s not a shock. It’s unpleasant, sure, and all hell breaks loose for a little while, but it's not a disaster.

This time around, it’s not just Five or even Diego going up against the two assassins. This time, they have Vanya’s powers and Five's expertise and then Klaus' hands glow, and they have Ben's monsters back as well.

Cha-Cha doesn't know what hits her.


	6. Diego: be that hopeful feeling when Eden was lost

_Ultimately, the universe doesn't care about us._

_Time doesn't care about us._

_That's why we have to care about each other._

**-David Levithan**

 

Diego doesn’t have a proper deadname, and for that he can’t help but feel grateful, in some shitty way. His old name is more associated with his life under Dad, not a wrongly ascribed gender.

By the time he came out, Mom was helping him and all his siblings choose their own names. His decision to go with ‘Diego’ wasn’t any stranger than Klaus naming himself after a character from a children’s book series or Vanya’s to give herself a name from the country she was born in or Luther to name himself after a villain in a comic book series. They all have their own deadnames, in one way or another, their numbers that labeled them as weapons and not children.

(Diego telling his siblings that he wasn’t their sister, but their brother- they accepted that. It wasn't any stranger than their powers, after all. Dad had accepted it, in his own nose-upturned sort of way, with Mom being programmed to give Diego the proper hormone treatments to keep him from going through the wrong puberty. Dad didn’t care what gender his kids were, just that they obeyed his rules. He was a dick, but it was a particular kind of dick.)

When someone calls him by his number, it’s not like they’re misgendering him- it feels more like they’re stripping away his identity until all he is is a weapon, a number in a list, a single part of the Umbrella Academy machine. And he's not, not anymore. He is Diego Hargreeves, dumbass and total mess and human with his own goddamn name. 

-

Eudora was the first friend he made when he left the Academy, the first one other than his siblings to accept him as himself. He'd been unsure in his identity as anything other than Diego Hargreeves, male, but he hadn't had to prove even that fact to her. He'd been constantly misgendered by magazines and talk shows, but Patch hadn't done that. She'd accepted his gender without question, content to argue with him about anything else, from the stock market to the local basketball team to tactics on the field to who should have won this season of American Idol.

So maybe Diego is a bit sharp at the edges- Patch is, too. She’s gentle with witnesses, a really good cop-in-training, but with him she's rough and argumentative. He kind of likes it, honestly. She's honest with him in a blunt but caring sort of way that no one has ever been before.

So of course he's gonna fuck it up, because Diego doesn't know how to take care of the good things and people in his life.

They fight when he quits the Police Academy the week before they're set to graduate. It's their biggest argument yet, and this time there's no friendly teasing or jokes. This time, it's a full-blown fight with shouting and anger and no punches pulled.

She wants to know why Diego's throwing away all his hard work, and he wants to explain, but he can't. He can't put into words his reasons for leaving, and he's sure that if he tried he'd just stammer his way through the explanation.

They hook up a few times, in the years after he leaves and she stays. She's strict on crime scenes and not as open with him as she used to be, but they still work. They still tease and banter and carry on a pretty decent friends-with-benefits type relationship. 

And honestly, it's pretty nice. He likes her a lot as a friend, and the sex is pretty great. He doesn't really feel anything towards her romantically, and he really values her opinion on things. He's pretty sure she feels the same about him. 

Then Ben, the second last Hargreeves at home, dies, and Diego doesn't really feel like having a relationship like this anymore. He doesn't feel like engaging much at all with the people close to him at all, except in distant conversations.

Because Ben stayed, and was a hero, and he died. He always cared the most about others out of any of them, and look where that got him.

At the funeral, a statue goes up. Diego keeps seeing Klaus fidgeting about, glancing in weird places, and he wonders if Klaus is high as hell or if he's seeing Ben.

Diego can't bring it in himself to care. For six years, he can't really find it in himself to care. He goes through life, being a superhero in name and sometimes in action, protecting people vigilante-style, and he lives alone and doesn't really talk to Patch or any of his siblings much.

It's not much a surprise that it takes another funeral to make him snap back into caring about himself and the people he loves, not just strangers. Dad dies and something in Diego realizes that things  _can_ change for the better. He doesn't want to be like Dad, uncaring and distant. He wants his friendship with Patch and his relationship with his siblings back. He wants to be better.

He just doesn't really know how to do that.

-

He kills Mom. He puts his fingers in her arm and-

He's killed plenty of people before. All of the Umbrella Academy has. But with Mom- it's different. She's not a criminal. She’s the first person he came out to, the woman who taught him how to control his stutter and zip his jacket and cook a mean  _enchilada._

He's been a Mama's boy since he was a kid, and he's always been proud of it. It didn't matter that his mother's a robot, that she was just programmed to be that way- he's loved her since he was a kid, when all he cared about was who comforted him and loved him. His siblings and him were too occupied with competing to truly bond, and so he'd turned to Mom.

So killing her- that might just have been one of the worst moments of his life. 

-

Diego gets to the hotel room and all he finds is Patch’s dead body. Patch, his best friend, his arguing-partner, is now forever his ex-something. He’s never gonna get the chance to thank her properly for everything she’s supported him through, to apologize for all the shit he's put her through.

His brother’s gone from the scene, and Diego hopes he's okay, but Patch is fucking  _dead_. She's gone, and it's all because of his stupid family and those fucking assassins and dammit, dammit,  _god fucking damn it_ -

Diego knows what he’s talking about when he asks Klaus about the one person who he loves with all his being. No, he wasn’t _that_ in love with Patch, but he did feel a lot towards her. When she died, he lost someone who had accepted and cared for him.

Maybe love's too strong a word for the friendship and relationship they had, but it was definitely something.

-

Mom comes back, and Diego blinks back tears. He's lost his best friend, but not his mother. He's at least got that.

-

When the Apocalypse doesn’t go down, things start to go a little bit easier between all of the siblings. They’ve bonded somewhat since Dad died, and all the revelations about powers and Five and shit have started them down the path to recovery.

But things don't really don't get pushed onto the road towards true healing and bonding until the night he finds Five curled up drunk on the ground in the laundry room and suddenly realizes that he sees himself in his brother. He recognizes that path of self-destruction. He recognizes that reaction to loss, the desire to destroy yourself in response to hurting the people you love most.

So Diego bends down and pulls that bottle of vodka from his little brother- because Five may be a fifty-eight-year-old assassin, but he's small and right now he's imploding and he needs someone, even if he won't admit it. Five lets him take it without a protest, and Diego knows that they're something seriously broken about his brother. He's not arguing, not putting up a fight like he did when they were trying to stop the Apocalypse. This is a very vulnerable version of the brother Diego just re-met.

That night, Five sleeps curled up in Diego's bed, and Diego feels the strangeness sense of protectiveness over this assassin. There's something clearly wrong with Five, something emotionally breakable, and Diego tries to imagine how isolating his years in the Apocalypse were. 

He can't truly do it. He doesn't think anyone can, other than five. He's at least had Pa- had  _people_ over the years. He's had general social interactions at the grocery store and on missions. He had two wonderful women who supported him, in their own ways.

Five hasn't even had those basics. For forty years, all he had was a mannequin. And that was it.

That would be enough to drive anyone insane.

So Diego holds his brother close and he swears that this time, he _will_ care. He's gonna help Five out as best he can, and not be afraid of caring too much.

Because Five is his brother, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with caring about him.

-

Diego finds Allison a few nights later standing outside of Five's room, a hand pulling the handle shut.

"Late night for you guys, too?" He asks, and she jerks up. He recognizes the stance her body moves into as a defensive one from their days in the Academy. It only takes her a moment to relax, though.

She nods. "He had a nightmare." She purses her lips. "Well, 'nightmare' probably isn't the best word to use. More like a bad memory."

Diego thinks about how Vanya and Klaus often end up curled up together to prevent bad dreams, how other nights he can hear Klaus and Dave at the end of the hallway talking deep into the night. He thinks about war and the Academy and the Apocalypse and how all of it can cause all kinds of trauma and damage.

He thinks about Five, tiny and drunk and clinging onto memories of a past that was objectively horrifying but the only thing that he can remember. "Yeah, I get it," he says, "I stopped him from drinking himself into oblivion a few nights ago."

Allison's eyes go wide for a moment before falling back to their normal size. "He's so small," Allison says quietly, "He's so old, but he's so small," and Diego nods. He understands. Dear god, he understands.

"He's our brother," Diego says, "And he's gone through as much shit as we have, and then some."

Allison nods. "And we weren't there for most of it."

Diego thinks about all the shit that they've all gone through that none of them supported each other through. Vanya being excluded and verbally abused, Klaus' drug addiction, Allison's divorce, Luther's years on the moon, Diego's time on the force and his transition process, Ben's death. Five's gone through a lot more shit, but they've all been alone and driven apart in their own ways. "I think most of us have gone through some shit that the others weren't there for. But now- now, we can help him heal."

Allison fixes him with a steady gaze, and Diego doesn't flinch.

She looks so old and yet so young at the same time. The scar on her neck is still rather dark and there are crows' feet around the edges of her eyes that weren't there the last time he saw her before Dad's funeral, six years ago at Ben's funeral. She's so mature, now, in a way she never was before. He wonders if it has to do with Claire or has to do with the fact that she's stopped using her powers, or if it's something of a mix of the two.

Diego wonders what she sees when she looks at him, if she sees the little boy straining to make the world see him for who he really was, bullying and scraping and pleading to get his way, or if she sees a half-broken man who's spent his whole adulthood clinging to the lies of superheroes he was told as a child.

"The three of us should really go grab dinner sometime soon," she eventually says, and Diego grins.

"I'd like that, and I think Five would too."

"Of course I would, you idiots," comes the voice from inside the room, and Allison giggles.

"This is gonna be great, Diego," she says. 

-

They start going to the diner every few days, him and Five and Allison. He starts to get to know his sister and his brother a bit better, and he really enjoys it. There's something incredibly normal and functional about the conversations between the three of them that Diego doesn't think they've ever had, even as children. 

-

Klaus bounds into his room one night after a particularly bad day and plants his ass directly in the middle of Diego's bed.

And he offers- Diego can't believe his offer. Klaus offers to bring Patch back, and suddenly Klaus finds himself with Diego's arms around him.

"Now, I don't have the emotional connection back to summon her permanently and make her corporeal and shit, but once I gain a little more strength I will," Klaus promises, and there's a lump in Diego's throat.

"Thank you," he says, and Klaus grins.

"Just want you to have what I do," Klaus says, voice fond, and Diego thinks about Dave and how his brother's been sober since he met the man. Diego's really thankful that Klaus met him and fell in love, even if the circumstances were less than fortunate.

-

Then, one night, in a hushed voice, Allison tells Five and Diego what Dad made her do to Vanya and Diego's fucking glad that their father's dead as a doorknob.

"You-you're a bastard, you know?" Diego says to the long-gone pile of ash in the courtyard after they get home that night. Vanya demolished all of the Reginald Hargreeves statues around the estate- good riddance, the abusive fuck- so this is the next best thing. "You fucked us all up. You drove Klaus to drugs and forced Allison to wipe Vanya's memory and sent Luther to the moon and killed Ben and nearly caused the Apocalypse that drove Five to become an assasin. You c-crushed me until I all I knew was how to strain to be the superhero I never could properly be.

The only good thing you ever f-fucking did was bring us together, but then you fucked us up in every conceivable way, so that's pretty damn cancelled out. Any good we've done was because of Mom and each other, not because of your sad excuse for a parenting style. 

In conclusion- get fucked, Dad."

"You're right, you know," a gruff voice says behind Diego, and he turns to see Luther standing there, looking awkward in his overcoat and in his agreement with Diego.

"Never thought I'd hear those words from your mouth," Diego says, a grim smile on his lips.

Luther shrugs, his mountain-like shoulders shifting with the grace of boulders. "Don't get used to it."

Diego snorts. "Don't worry, I never would."

Luther looks around, hesitating a bit awkwardly, before clearing his throat. "But what you said about Dad, about what he did to us- you have a point. He lied to us and nearly helped destroy us."

All of these are things that Diego never would have guessed that Luther would say, but things have definitely changed. Diego wonders when exactly Luther's opinion of Dad shattered. Was it the revelation about the Moon, or was it Vanya, or was it something else?

Whatever it was, Diego's glad that it happened and that Luther has finally pulled his head out of his ass. 

-

Luther starts to join Allison, Diego, and Five on their diner nights. At first it's a bit awkward, with all of the history between them all, but after a few braced conversations things start to get easier. Luther starts to open up just like they have, and soon enough Diego's starting to see him not as One, but as just another sibling. Luther's a bit better when he's not under Dad's influence- a bit broody and kind of a loner, but hey, Diego's the same so he can't really judge. The whole 'righteous leader' thing has really been toned down, and Diego's not sure why, but he appreciates it a lot.

Diego's been watching Luther heal and grow for weeks now, watching him soften and actually start to laugh at some of Diego's jokes and Five's snarky comments. Along the way, Diego's seen glimpses of healing from the rest of his siblings, too.

Allison's voice is getting better and she's being more open about the parts of her  _rumor_ that she locked way down. Five's started to soften and refrain from his instinct to snap at them, instead smiling instead of grimacing at their conversations. Vanya's powers have been expanding, her using music to channel her ability into creating art and helping their siblings as much as she uses it to destroy. Ben seems to be having a good time around them, hanging out and playing games and just generally acting alive and happy. Klaus is smiling, but it's not the smile of a suicidal junkie- no, these smiles are soft and gentle, given whenever Dave holds his hand or even speaks to Klaus.

It takes three weeks for Diego to realize that he's healing too. He's smiling more, regretting less, enjoying life more.

The Umbrella Academy was a total failure, but the Hargreeves siblings are not. Diego won't let them be, and to be honest, it looks like most of his siblings agree.

-

In L.A., Klaus summons Patch back and suddenly Diego is staring at his best friend, who's got a bloodstain on her chest but a cup of tea in her hand and a small smile on her face.

He doesn't know exactly what he and Patch are. They're not soulmates like Klaus and Dave, not mutual survivors like Dolores and Five. They were just best friends who slept with each other, and then they weren't even that. 

He doesn't know if he wants more with her, after everything that's happened. She died. (Okay, so she's pretty alive here, with Klaus, but she did die in the first place.) He's still alive. He doesn't know what he wants with her, whether he wants a relationship or friendship or something else.

But she's his best friend, and that means a lot whether or not he wants to pursue more of a relationship with her.

"Long time no see," Diego says, and she snorts.

"That's your line?"

"Well, you know me," Diego says, "I'm not exactly the best when it comes to words."

Patch's expression softens. "Nah, you've got plenty of words, and you know how use 'em." She holds up her mug. "Want to talk over a drink?"

Diego's face breaks into a smile. "Can't hurt."

-

Diego, Allison, Five, and Luther transfer their diner visits to a local diner that Allison swears by. It's not  _their_ diner, but it's still lots of fun.

"Maybe it's not about the location, but the people," Patch says when he tells her one night after he gets home from a diner visit, and he nods.

"You've always been pretty smart," Diego says.

"Can't be a detective without intelligence," Patch says.

Diego looks at her, at the sharp look in her eyes, at the detective's badge she still wears even after cleaning up her chest and changing her shirt a bit. She's always been the smarter of the two of them, the more clever one.

(It's what did her in, in the end.)

"So you and your siblings are getting along a lot better, now?" Patch asks, and Diego thinks about the way Five actually laughed at a joke tonight, about how Luther and Five are talking about their mutual love of the  _Chronicles of Narnia_ series (Diego thinks it might have something to do with talking animals and people getting stuck back in their young bodies), and Allison's visits with Claire bring up plenty of good stories.

"Yeah, I think so," Diego says, and Patch smiles.

"I'm glad."

Yeah, Diego thinks he is too.

-

Three weeks into their stay at Allison's house, the issue of space is brought up.

"Now, I love you guys, don't get me wrong," Klaus says, "But I don't think we can all keep living in Allison's house together. It's a bit cramped."

That's a bit of blunt way to start a conversation, but Diego gets the point so he doesn't comment. He's getting better at that.

"Where are we going to stay?" Ben asks. "Are we all going to separate again, go our different ways, or are we gonna stay together?"

Diego looks around at his family- at Five, and Allison, and Patch, and Vanya, and Ben, and Klaus, and Luther, and even Dave, whose hand is resting on his brother's thigh. Despite spending the past twelve years living on his own, only seeing them at funerals and Allison's wedding, he kinda feels like he can't give them up, now. Something has grown between them that is hard to let go of.

And fuck it, it may be him trying to compensate for the years they spent apart, but he's kinda okay with that.

But looking at it from a logical position, Ben, Patch, and Dave go wherever Klaus goes. They've done low-key experiments regarding the extent of his powers, and though he can now keep them corporeal for up to seven hours at a time, able to go a distance from him, but that once they go back to only being seen by him, he has to reconjure them next to him.

Diego knows he's going where Klaus goes, to keep up with Patch, but he can't imagine letting go of his late night conversations with Allison, Five, and even Luther, either.

"Does anyone really want to go back home to the mansion?" Allison asks, and Diego seriously ponders it.

Vanya's destroyed most of the parts of that place that haunted them- the statues of Dad, the mausoleum, the cell in the basement. Their bedrooms somehow feel more like theirs than they ever did when they were kids. Diego thinks of a dance, held in the hall and trips to the local diner with Allison and Five. And, of course, Mom and Pogo are still living at the mansion.

"I kinda like living there, nowadays," Diego says, and Patch's eyes go wide.

"Since when, Diego?" she asks, arching an eyebrow.

"Since I started to get to know these idiots again," Diego says, gesturing to his siblings, and he spots a wide grin on Allison's face, a half-smile on Luther's, and a small smirk on Five's. "And Vanya got rid of a lot of the physical shit haunting that house."

"Well, I wouldn't mind moving in," Klaus says with a shrug. "I mean, I don't exactly have a house at the moment, and we were doing pretty well there before this lovely visit." He looks to Dave and Ben. "How about you two?"

Dave smiles, nothing but love in his eyes. "I'll follow you 'til the ends of the earth, love."

Ben shrugs. "I'll come with you too."

"I'm gonna stay, too," Luther says, "Long as you guys are okay with it."

Diego recognizes the vulnerability it took Luther to say something like that, to acknowledge someone else's opinion as equal or even greater than his own. It's a skill that Diego at least somewhat learned from Patch in the outside world, but Luther never left Dad and thus never grew that sort of instinct. Diego's glad that he's picking it up now. Thirty years late is better than never, after all.

Klaus can't contain the glee in his eyes. "Sounds great to me, bro." 

"I want to stay in the mansion," Five says, and Diego watches as Five's gaze slides between Allison and Diego himself.

"I'll go with you," Diego says, looking at Patch, who gives him a small but almost proud smile.

"I'm on board," Vanya adds. "Diego does have a point- I  _did_ get rid of all the bad shit." Diego thinks he can almost detect a note of pride in her voice, and he totally gets it. When she destroyed the mausoleum and the basement prison and all the statues of Dad, she did what no one else could for thirty years.

Diego looks to Allison, who's staring down at her knees, teeth worrying over her lip as she thinks. For a moment of bated breath, she doesn't say a thing, instead holding the room in anticipatory silence.

"I'll talk to Claire," Allison says, "But I can act anywhere. And even if I didn't, I've got a support cushion a mile long and I have Dad's inheritance coming in. I don't have to worry about money." She looks up and at each of them, a small, fond smile on her lips. "And I just got all of you back- I wouldn't give up this family again just so that I could keep living in L.A."

There's something warm in Diego's chest that only grows bigger when Vanya stands up, walks over, and pulls Allison into a hug. Allison giggles and hugs her back, and Diego can see the tears in Allison's eyes.

-

Cha-Cha and Jack attack on the official "Move-Back-In-Day." It's a bit of a mess, especially considering the fact that Dave, Patch, and Vanya have never met Cha-Cha before and the whole assassination attempt kind of throws everyone a bit off kilter.

But at the end of the day, it turns out that shit can get solved pretty easily by Klaus' glowing hands and Ben's thirty-feet-long tentacles.

Cha-Cha and Jack may be coming back, but it won't be anytime soon.

-

"Do you think a lot of us have "upgrades" to our powers?" Diego asks that night, once their giant family is sitting down at the table. Diego's kinda shocked that they all can fit- Luther, Allison, Klaus, Dave, Five, Ben, Vanya, Mom, Pogo, Patch, and him- but on the other hand, he's actually pretty happy that they all can have dinner as a family.

"Well, I'm pretty sure that Vanya can't really  _get_ upgrades," Allison says, "Considering the fact that her current powers have been proven to be able to cause the Apocalypse. But the rest of us...I'd think so, yeah."

"I mean,  _you_ can already bend reality with your words, sis," Klaus says with a wave of the fingers, "So I don't really think that you can upgrade." Allison shrugs as if to say  _touche._

"I think that Five's already shown his," Patch says, "Time travelling seems like a bit of an upgrade from teleporting, right?"

Five gives Patch an appraising look. "Good point, Detective." Then he looks over at Ben. "What could monster tentacles grow into?"

Ben shrugs. "Dunno. They haven't really "upgraded" since death like Klaus' have." Ben looks over at Diego. "And what about you, Diego?"

"Still just curving things," Diego says, "But trust me, I'm down for more."

-

So Diego's living with his giant family in a mansion that used to haunt his dreams, and he thinks he's happier than he's ever been.

And sure, his life isn't normal, but fuck, has it ever been? Maybe it's a bit crazier than before- he's living with three dead people, one of which is a Vietnam veteran dating his brother- but this time around, he's got lots of support and a lot better relationship with his siblings. He's got trips to the diner every few nights, a biweekly bowling trip set up with Vanya, and he occasionally brings Klaus, Dave, and Ben on missions with him.

Most of the time, though, his partner on missions is Patch. She helps him with the more deduction-based aspects of his job, following criminals to their sources rather than just taking them out immediately. She gets her own mask, combat boots, and a darker jacket so that she can't be recognized by law enforcement. She's got some issues with the whole process, but this _is_ the closest she can get to continuing to keep the streets safe now that she's dead. After all, she's considered pretty dead by the government and it'd be a bit hard to explain the whole situation to anyone who isn't in the know.  

And two weeks after the whole Cha-Cha fiasco, Patch kisses him in an alleyway. Her lips are chapped and a little cool, but he can't deny that he hasn't ever been this attracted to someone before.

"Been waiting for that for awhile," Patch says with a smile, and he smiles right back.

"Gotta agree on that," he says, then leans in and kisses her again.


	7. Grace: we'll name our children (sit back and watch the world go by)

_But there's a story behind everything._

_How a picture got on a wall._

_How a scar got on your face._

_Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking._

_But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begin._

_**- Mitch Albom** _

 

Grace Hargreeves loves all her children.

-

Grace loves Five despite the fact that he ran away, that he left her with a gaping hole in her programming until Reginald fixed it so she stopped setting an eighth place at the table.

She loves Five because he disobeyed his father, because he was always determined to choose his own path. He ran and ran and ran until they could never catch him, landing on the other side of an Apocalypse Reginald nearly caused by his parenting.

She loves Five because he came back, because he spent forty years trying to save them. He returns from the Apocalypse and he is as tiny as she remembers, as ageless as she is, but he carries such loss in his eyes that her only instinct is to help him.

(When Five appears in her kitchen, she quietly goes and changes the sheets on his empty bed, remaking it so that he will have a place to sleep tonight. The bed has not been made in seventeen years, ever since Reginald altered her so that she would forget her son until he showed up again.)

-

Grace loves Diego despite the fact that she knows he killed her.

She loves Diego _because_ he is selfless, because he only killed her because of the pain he was in. She loves him because of his stutter and the way he always asked her to help, because he was always the most generous of his siblings.

She loves Diego because of the kindness in him that leads him to taking her off the grounds a few days after the Apocalypse doesn't happen, telling her in a gentle voice that she doesn't have to listen to what anyone tells her to do anymore. He takes her walking and she feels ground under her feet for the first time ever. She feels the uneven grass under her heels and she starts to understand what it is like not to be perfect, not to be constantly on the verge of breaking from pressure.

(Grace was the first to accept Diego after he came out. Reginald didn't even need to tweak her programming for her to recognize Diego as her son, not her daughter.)

-

Grace loves Allison despite the fact that she was the first to leave her on purpose, that she willingly left home and Grace for a life in L.A. 

She loves Allison because of her spirit, her willingness to do right. Allison was always going to be the first one to leave, from the very get-go- Allison was always the one who wanted out, wanted to see the world beyond the mansion. None of Grace's other children were ever as curious or demanding about the outside world as Allison was.

She loves Allison because she inherited so much of Grace's gentleness, that Allison is there for her siblings, in the end. When Reginald dies and Grace's children return home, she watches Allison seek to help her siblings and bring Vanya home.

(When Allison is ten-years-old, she starts to talk about the movies and how she wants to be like the women onscreen. Grace gives one of her knitted scarves to the milkman in exchange for a gossip magazine that she places on Allison's bed while her daughter is out fighting yet another crime.

Allison's smile when she'd seen the magazine had been one of the most beautiful things Grace has ever seen.)

-

Grace loves Klaus despite the fact that she doesn’t have one sober conversation with him from the day he turns fourteen until the day he returns from the Vietnam War.

She loves Klaus because of his flair, because he's always been a bit off-center. The drugs certainly added to the strangeness of his behavior, but he's always been the kid that pushed the dress code, who dyed his hair blond (just for kicks, he said) at age twelve and wore one of his sister's skirts for a week when he was ten.

She loves Klaus because he has always cared too much. When he was seven-years-old, he tried to cross stitch her a picture of the first spirit he saw. He failed miserably, but he had smiled a gummy smile at her (he had just lost one of his front teeth and the new one had yet to grow in) and told her that the woman was named Regina and that she had a smile just like Grace's

(The night Klaus had come in from the mausoleum, trembling and skin too pale and too cool to the touch, Grace had wrapped him in a blanket and sat next to him on his bed, reading him a bedtime story until he fell asleep.)

-

Grace loves Vanya despite the fact that she doesn't have powers.

She loves Vanya because of the attention she pays her violin, the way that Vanya can create art as beautiful as Grace's paintings. Vanya's music, however, is living art, able to change and become something new.

She loves Vanya because she is such an observant child. Reginald only reads Vanya's book once before slamming it into the shelf and never reading it again, but Grace picks up the book and reads it whenever Reginald is out and she is doing chores. Vanya's book is exacting, every detail laid out in precise, descriptive sentences.

(It haunts some part of her memory that Grace suspects Reginald deleted- when did Vanya begin to take those pills? When did that music start? How did her daughter go so quiet?)

-

Grace loves Ben despite the fact that he was never a fighter, a perfect hero like his siblings.

She loves Ben because he is gentle, because he died from being too soft. Ben was always a disappointing statistic to his father, but to Grace she was just her baby boy, who loved to read more than he wanted to fight.

(She loved him and she buried him, her blue dress as pressed and clean as it was when she wiped the blood from his face after his first mission.)

-

Grace loves Luther despite the fact that he is cold to his siblings. 

She loves Luther because he tries so hard to do his best. Luther has always been the leader, the hero, the sibling who took charge. He threw himself into every mission like it could be his last, and he'd nearly destroyed himself in his attempt to prove himself.

She loves Luther because he is willing to make up for his past mistakes. In the time after the Not-Apocalypse, he spends his time trying to help his siblings. He has late-night trips to a diner with Five, Allison, and Diego, reads and listens to music with Vanya, and tries his best to talk war stories with Klaus and Dave. He's trying to redeem himself for everything he did after Reginald's death, and she appreciates that.

(When Pogo and Reginald had wheeled Luther's body, Grace hadn't flinched at the bloodied mess that made up her son's torso. She'd already witnessed one son die- she was going to her very best to save this one as well.)

-

She even loves Eudora and Dave, despite the fact that the first time she meets them is when she's stitching up their dead chests. She loves them because they make her children happy, because they are willing to stay here using Klaus' powers in order to stay with Klaus and Diego.

She loves Eudora and Dave because they are gentle despite the wars they have fought, the crimes they've seen, the deaths they've died.

-

Grace loves her children too much. She loved them enough to name them, to give them an identity other than weapons. They were never just numbers to her, even before she helped them choose their names.

All she wants is for them to be happy and healthy, and she gives everything she has to make that happen.

-

Grace has never loved Reginald Hargreeves.

Grace is the perfect mother, but she was never the perfect wife.

Here’s the secret Grace Hargreeves never tells: Reginald never turned off her first aid programming. He didn't have to. She was programmed to protect her children, and Reginald was hurting them. Grace would rather him die than live, for the sake of her children. 

Grace never loved Reginald Hargreeves, and she doesn't cry when the man dies. Why would she? He was the monster who hurt her children, who made them cry and scream and doubt their own minds. He is the one who made them run, who hurt them, who _broke_ them. 

Reginald dies, and Grace is free to love and protect her children as she is meant to. She can help them heal. She won't break them like he did.


	8. Luther: somewhere in the stratosphere

_Alone._

_Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue._

_Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym._

**― Stephen King**

 

Allison had been the only friend Luther had really made among his siblings, the only person he’d allowed past the guise of fearless leader. Diego and he had always clashed, Klaus and Ben had always close enough, Vanya was too different and too quiet, and Five was too rebellious and then he was gone.

Allison had been the only one he'd really connected with. She'd been firm but willing to listen, creative and determined. She was always brighter than he was, more full of energy and drive. He followed Dad's orders to the letter but she thought outside of the box, able to come up with new ideas while in the field and adventures while at home. She'd made life fun, and was easily his favorite sibling.

And then she'd left the day they'd all turned eighteen to go off to Hollywood, and then there were four of them- Vanya, Diego, Ben, and Luther. Five had died and Klaus was already in his second stint of rehab. Diego had left a week after Allison to join the police academy, and soon it was only Vanya, Ben, and Luther.

Vanya had left and gone to wherever the hell she'd ended up, and there had only been two heroes left. Ben, too gentle to argue firmly with dad, and Luther, Number One.

Ben was the last to go, and the only way he made it out was through death.

And then, for six years, there was only Luther.

The first time Luther left the Academy was to go the moon. His entire life he stayed, head in the sand, clinging to the memory of the life he once lived here, with his siblings. He stayed his father’s loyal support, the only child to follow orders until the very end.

Because Luther was the last one left. He was _always_ the first to go into a crime scene, the first to charge in, the first to even get his powers, and now he was the last to leave.

He was Number One. The _only_ one.

Luther was, in the end, the leader. The hero. The last student of the Umbrella Academy.

(Alone.) 

-

There is a loose floorboard in Luther’s room with a dozen bags of unopened files underneath of it- four years worth of unanswered prayers, evidence of a lifetime lived alone, in the dark.

After he discovered the board, Luther broke down- or, more accurately, he just _broke_.

In the aftermath, he made bad decisions, reckless, angry choices. They weren’t the right ones, not by any measure, but they’re what he made anyway.

He was Number One. He had to be the leader. He had to protect his siblings, had to prove that he wasn’t useless.

(He had to prove that there was a  _point_ to four years of isolation.)

He hadn’t stopped to think about the fact that Vanya was scared and lashing out because she had no idea how her powers worked. He’d been the first to figure out that he had powers, and he’s had them so long he can’t even remember a time when he didn’t have them. He hadn’t stopped to consider everything, too distracted by his anger over Allison nearly dying and his self-hatred over the moon and his grief over Dad and his feelings over, well, everything.

He’d felt like the leader. He’d _had_ to take charge, to take care of and protect his siblings.

For a moment, he forgot that Vanya was his sister too, and he nearly fucked over the entire world.

- 

Luther realizes that he’s the reason that the Apocalypse would have happened, if it hadn’t been for Ben and Klaus- some absolutely disastrous combination of Vanya’s powers and his callous decision-making. He would have destroyed everything in his flawed plan to protect his family.

But beyond that- he nearly sentenced his sister to rot. It's hard to accept that he did that, once he steps back and has to face his own decisions.

What happened with Allison- that was a tragic accident. Vanya didn't know the strength of her own powers, was trying to process something strange and new after a lifetime of having it being kept secret from her. 

And yet instead of asking her, he'd tricked her. He'd knocked her out and locked her out.

Vanya is his sister, too. She deserves Luther's love and protection just as much as Allison and the rest of his siblings do. He should have listened before assuming, should have heard her out, should have given her a chance just like he always gave Allison.

But that's the thing- does Luther even know how to properly love?

What kind of brother knocks his sister out and traps her in a basement? What kind of brother fights his brother at a funeral and knocks over a dead boy's statue? What kind of brother accuses his siblings of murdering their father?

How the fuck do you process the fact that you're the kind of horrible person who would do that to your own sister, your own brother, your own siblings?

Luther has some idea of how to be a mission leader, but he has very little idea of how to be a brother.

Because here's the thing: it’s a lot harder to ask for forgiveness than to just give orders. It's a lot easier to be mission leader, to push your own ideas, to ignore others' wants and needs and lives, than to own up to your mistakes and try to be a better person.

But damn, Luther wants to try. He _has_ to try. He can’t be the man Dad made him into, the kind of man who made the Apocalypse happen. He can't be the man who isn't a brother, the man who values a dead, abusive man's views over the health and wellbeing of his living, broken siblings.

So in the Aftermath of the Not-Apocalypse, he does. He tries. He knows he's fucking up, that he keeps screwing up, but it's time that he finally starts to be a brother and not a leader, that he starts to be kind and not a loner.

 

-

Luther meets Dave, and he realizes that Klaus went through a war. Not just a war, though- Klaus spent an _entire year_ in the past and no one noticed, especially Luther.

It hits him hard, all the the ways in which he failed his siblings. Klaus' constant revolving roulette of rehab, overdosing, and prison; Allison's desire to run; Ben dying; Vanya nearly causing the Apocalypse; Five running away; 

Luther should have been there for them instead of closing himself off in the mansion and then running away to the moon. He should have tried to do more, to help his siblings more, to save them from destruction. He should have done more to help, rather than destroy. 

-

Family Game Night is certainly an _experience_ , to say the least.

Luther thinks that playing Cards Against Humanity with these people is perhaps the best and worst idea he’s ever had.

Diego tends to go in for the most inappropriate thing possible, as does Klaus (though Luther's not sure if Klaus isn't doing it with the express purpose of getting to explain to Dave what everything means). Five plays the most violent possible combinations possible, while Ben and Vanya go for clever political jokes that have a tendency to fly over everyone else's heads. Allison tends to play softballs but has won at least a third of the rounds she's played with wickedly cutting jokes. Dave doesn't really seem to get the game, but he'll occasionally throw in a really dirty or clever joke. (Luther thinks that the best comination of the night comes from Dave's pairing of the black card that says " **In a world ravaged by _____, our only solace is ________** " with  **"The violation of our most basic human rights"** and  **"The homosexual agenda."** )

And Luther? He just tries to keep up with everyone's jokes, tries to learn more about these siblings that he never really got to know as kids. He has so much to make up for, and learning about everyone's senses of humor is a small thing, but it's a place to start.

-

Luther dreams of the moon, of the cool and dark, of a dumpster full of trash that would never be collected. He dreams of an empty world, of four years where his only interaction with others was the routine response Pogo sent each month when he sent over his data. 

He dreams of a world in which he went a little mad with hope and silence, a world in which he breathed recycled air and his shit was vaporized as soon as it dropped into the toilet and he wrote reports for a father who never cared.

Isolation seems to be a running theme with the Hargreeves siblings. A mausoleum, the basement, the Apocalypse, the moon- so many of them have been trapped alone.

(It's no wonder so many of them went insane.)

-

Luther finds Diego shouting at Dad in an empty courtyard, and he _understands_. His vision of his father as a hero has been shattered by the Not-Apocalypse and by the floorboard in his room and a whole shitton of other things.

So for the first time in his life, Luther admits that Diego is right. His pride may not like it, but damn his ego- he needs to make things better with his siblings. He can't just be the solo mission leader anymore. He can't keep destroying things and expect to see himself intact at the end.

His first trip to the diner, Luther sits next to Allison while Five and Diego sit across from them in the booth.

“The trick is regulating your powers,” Five says, continuing on some conversation that they were having last time, "Figuring out the calculation necessary to project your will over the energy of the consciousness that you are manipulating."

"Who's powers are we talking about here?" Luther asks, and Allison raises a hand.

"Five's got a theory that I could expand The Rumor thing past just changing people's actions, but I call bullshit. I experimented plenty when we were kids, and I just can't manipulate matter like he thinks I can." Then she gives Five a weighted look. "And besides, I don't Rumor anymore, remember?"

Five shrugs. "Hey, the calculations don't lie. They got me here, didn't they?"

"And you ended up in the body of a thirteen-year-old boy," Diego points out, "They weren't perfect calculations, by any means."

Allison snorts as Five rolls his eyes. "And yet they prevented the Apocalypse, so suck on that, Diego."

Luther blinks. That's such a juvenile response, so unlike the fifty-eight-year-old man that he's come to know, but it's also one that betrays just how much more comfortable Five has become with their siblings. 

A waitress with purple-dyed hair walks up to their table, and Allison grins. "Looks like my favorite customers are back," the waitress says, voice thick with a Southern accent, "And this time you've brought a friend."

"Our brother, Luther," Diego says, gesturing to Luther, who gives the waitress a small, perfunctory wave. "Luther, meet Lucy- we've had her every trip here for a few weeks, now."

"Nice to meet you, Lucy," Luther says, because there's never a second chance to make a good first impression.

"Nice to meet you too, Luther," Lucy says with a bright smile, "Your siblings are some of the most interesting people I've ever met."

Diego snorts. "That's certainly one way to describe us." Luther can't help but agree. 

"The usual drink order for you three?" Lucy offers, gesturing to Luther's siblings, and they all nod. "And for you?" she asks Luther.

He glances at the other three at the table. "Water for me, please."

"Cool," Lucy says, "I'll have it out in a few minutes."

 

- 

Claire was born a month before Luther's incident, a month before he went into space, and he's never met her. He's not the only Uncle or Aunt of Claire's that she hasn't met, though, so he shouldn't feel too bad about it.

He does, though. He knows that Allison left, that the only time he saw her after she left was at Ben's funeral, but it doesn't change the fact that she was his closest sibling. He should have met Claire. He should have been there for Allison during her divorce.

The night before they're set to head to L.A., Luther finds himself in his room, sitting alone after an evening of dance with all of his siblings. 

Allison comes in and sits down on Luther's bed next to him, pulling her legs up into a criss-cross applesauce position. "You're beating yourself up, aren't you?"

Luther raises an eyebrow. "Over what?"

She shrugs. "I dunno, but I know that look. You always had that look on your face when we were kids and you were about to make some kind of stupid decision based on some feeling of inadequacy. So spill, dude."

"I've never met Claire before," Luther starts, not sure how to voice all of the doubt in his brain. He fucked up with his own siblings, with Vanya and with everyone else- how can he possibly be guaranteed not to fuck up with Claire? How is Allison trusting him?

"Well, you'll get to tomorrow," Allison says, a proud smile crossing her face, and it hits Luther that Allison actually can't wait to introduce all of them to her daughter. All of them- fucked up, crazy, destructive- she wants them there, with the little girls he loves more than anyone else in the world.

"Why do you want us to meet your daughter so much?" he says, and her eyes go wide. Fuck. That's not what he meant to say. "I mean, why are you  _proud_  of us? We're a bunch of fuck ups, Allison."

Allison's face softens. "Luther, you're my siblings, Claire's Aunt and Uncles. Of course I want you to meet her. And I'm proud of all of you- all of  _us_ \- because yeah, we were fuck ups, but we've all grown. We've all become better, now that Dad's not around."

Luther almost wants to protest, to defend Dad, but he bites back the instinct. There really is nothing to defend. Dad pushed them away from each other, gave them numbers and turned them into weapons. Dad was the one who fucked them up to the point where they nearly destroyed the world- and, in another lifetime, did.

"Alright," Luther says instead, "I can't wait to meet my niece."

Allison grins. "And Claire can't wait to meet Spaceboy."

-

In L.A., they all stay at Allison's house, which is kinda big, but not big enough that everyone has their own beds. Luther's got his own bed due to his size, but Klaus and Vanya are sharing a bed most nights, with Vanya sharing Allison's bed on the nights Dave is around. Diego's bunking down with Five (something that Luther is almost terrified of asking about, considering the number of kills the two have racked up between them) and Ben tends to sleep on the couch on the nights when he's corporeal.

(And then when Patch shows up, she tends to sleep on the other sofa, the one in Allison's upstairs den.)

Over the weeks they spend here, Luther gets to know his siblings' partners outside of Dave, who's pretty much like another brother at this point.

He meets Patch, sees the way his brother looks at her, and then meets Alyssa, who it's only taken Vanya a month to fall head-over-heels for. He thinks that both of them make pretty great partners for his siblings, support them in the ways he never did. 

-

They all move back into the mansion, and things are different. Luther doesn't know what it is- the air, the people, the lack of Dad- that makes the mansion feel more like a home than a school or a prison, but he definitely likes the change.

Cha-Cha and her new partner attack the mansion and they get pretty soundly defeated. Luther barely even has a chance to register the fight, Ben and Klaus's powers combining to take them down before he even exits the restroom to witness the fight outside.

That night, Five, Diego, Allison, and Luther go back to their diner, and it's comforting in the way that returning from the moon initially wasn't. Luther has a home, now, with people he loves in a way he never loved them before.

-

Luther really finally gets Vanya when the two of them are at home in the mansion one day. Nearly everyone else is out- Klaus and Dave are on a date, Patch and Diego are on a mission, Five and Allison are out  _shopping_ , of all things, and Ben, well, Luther can never be entirely sure what Ben's getting up now that he's corporeal.

The radio's playing quietly in the background, some country music channel that Luther neither likes nor dislikes. He's reading a romance novel that Five and Allison couldn't stop talking about on their last diner trip, and Vanya's typing something at the table. The quiet is kind of nice, if Luther's willing to admit, and it doesn't feel too tense. Something in L.A. has changed them, somewhat, has allowed them to become more comfortable with each other.

Then an older song comes on the radio, a song that came out a few years before he went up to the moon, and Luther only gets to hear a few chords before suddenly the world  _shudders._ Hard objects- candlesticks, lamps, a stapler, books, a small table- fly at the radio. They connect with a  _crash_ , and the music cuts off abruptly.

Luther turns, on edge, to find Vanya standing with more of those same hard objects swirling around her in the air. Her eyes are glowing silver and her hands are a little too, but he can't help but notice the tears falling down her cheeks.

This time, Luther doesn't panic. He doesn't lash out, try to lock her up. He's supposed to protect his siblings, and that means  _all_ of them. He has to find out why her eyes are glowing, why she just destroyed that radio, why the entire world feels like it may just implode.

"Vanya," Luther says, voice as gentle as he can make it, "What's the matter?"

She turns and looks at him, some candlesticks and lamps still hovering above her hands, ready to fly. They're pointed at him, and he tries not to flinch. It's hard, though- his sister, always little, always ordinary, caused the Apocalypse once. "She  _died_ ," Vanya hisses. "She's dead, and it's all my fault."

Trying to tread very, very carefully, Luther asks, "Who's dead?"

"Jeanine," she says, sobbing a little and her hands dim so that they're no longer glowing. The objects still hover, but some small part of him breathes a little easier anyway. "And it's all my fault."

"Who was Jeanine?"

"My girlfriend," she says, and Luther didn't know that. He didn't know that Vanya had a girlfriend before Alyssa, or even a relationship at all before Leonard. Shit- he really missed a lot, didn't he, with his head stuck up his ass for all those years. "She died in a car crash." She lets out a small, raw noise, and the objects around her head start to circling again. "On a day when I forgot to take my meds."

"Do you..." Luther swallows. "Do you want a hug?"

Vanya blinks and the objects fall to the ground. "What?" she asks, voice a quiet rasp, and her eyes are still glowing but Luther's not afraid. He's not scared of her hurting anyone. 

She's just his sister, small and vulnerable, and all he wants to do is to keep her safe.

He offers up his big arms, and he remembers, all too vivdly, the last time he hugged her. A lump forms in his throat- how could he have done that to Vanya? How could he have tricked and hurt her like that?

Luther, as he often has over the past couple of months, wonders how he could have fucked up so badly, how he went from hero to villain, from brother to abuser. 

But then Vanya steps forward, and he pulls her into a gentle hug. She burrows her head into his large chest and Luther just softly pats her on the back.

 

Allison and Five get home a few hours later and the living room's still a hot mess, but Luther and Vanya are curled up on the sofa watching  _Dreamgirls._

(Well, to be accurate, Luther's the only one watching the movie. Vanya passed out around the half hour mark of the movie, and he didn't want to disturb her so he just stayed in his position, her tiny and strangely vulnerable after the way she nearly destroyed the living room.)

Luther turns slightly to see his siblings as they enter the room. "This almost makes me wish I was back in Dallas," Five says with a roll of the eyes, staring at all the clutter scattered around the room.

Allison, on the other hand, just smiles. "Whatever happened, they're getting better."

Luther glances between the two of them and Vanya. "Mind being a bit quieter?" he asks as Jennifer Hudson begins to belt  _And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going._

Five pointedly looks at the screen but doesn't bite back, and Luther suddenly realizes just how much his brother has softened over the past couple of months. He also realizes how much  _he_ has softened, how he's finally starting to kinda make up for the damage that he did. 

Luther is allowed to be gentle. He is allowed not to take a stand, to be the leader, to prove that he is as emotionally strong as he is physically strong. 

(The further Luther gets from acting like his father, the more Luther starts to feel less guilty. He likes it, if he's being honest.)

"Also, let's not listen to country music any more, alright?" He says, and Five raises an eyebrow.

"Vanya?" Allison asks, and Luther nods. She gives him a small, proud smile. "No more country music," she agrees, and that's that.

- 

A few days later, Luther is with Klaus and Dave, who are tag-teaming telling the story of their date yesterday, where Klaus taught Dave about the modern-day advancements to the fast-food industry and took him to see the newest movie in the MCU.

Klaus is in the middle of a monologue when Dave disappears, as he tends to do, and Klaus keeps talking, not having noticed the difference. "And then I had to explain to Dave how Tony Stark and Steve Rogers are  _totally_ fucking, right Luther, and-" He cuts off, brow furrowing. "Why the fuck are you drenched?" he asks.

"Who are you seeing?" Luther asks, but Klaus isn't paying any sort of attention to him. Instead, his face is going pale as whatever ghost he's seeing keeps talking.

"Oh, fuck," Klaus nearly shouts, jumping up from his seat. "We've gotta help him!"

Luther likes to think that he's developed more patience over the past few months, but Klaus is testing him a bit. "Who's in trouble?" Luther asks

"It's Diego," Klaus says, "Patch says that Cha-Cha and Jack captured the two of them while on a mission, and that all she heard before her corporeal stage ran out and she was phased back here was that they were planning on drowning him."

A shiver of fear runs down Luther's back. Diego can't die- they've gotta save him.

"Let's go save him," Luther says, and it's a promise.

-

Luther and Klaus get to the river where there are a number of chains falling into the water, and Luther _runs_. He can't let Diego die, not after everything they've gone through since Dad's death.

He can't utilize Ben's powers- Klaus takes at least two hours to recharge to be able to summon any of their dead family into corporeal status, much less monster-summoning strength- but fuck it, he doesn't need them. He may have a misshapen body, but he still has his strength.

Luther grabs on the chains, and then yanks and yanks and then pulls Diego out of the water. He braces himself, ready to go in for CPR or some other kind of life-saving process, but when Diego comes out he seems perfectly okay, if a bit drenched. He's not unconscious, not gasping for air- he's mad as hell, but that's not anything new.

"Lemme at 'em," Diego nearly shouts, "Get these fucking chains off of me and lemme take them out for what they tried to do to Five and you, Klaus."

"They're gone," Klaus says as Luther starts prying some of the heavy-ass chains off of Diego's body, "Took off when Luther got here. Some woman they killed earlier today- nice lady named Karolyn- told me that their plan was just to kill Diego- once that was done, they were gone."

Diego blinks. "That was a rather throrough explanation."

Klaus shrugs. "Guess that's what happens when you're sober."

-

They get back to the mansion within an hour, and they find Vanya, Five, and Allison all there, waiting for them. 

"How the fuck are you alive?" Vanya asks, staring at Diego, still drenched in river water.

"They tried to drown me," Diego says, "But it didn't quite work."

"That's your upgrade," Five says with a proud smirk. "You can breathe underwater."

Diego nods, smirking despite his waterlogged appearance. "Not what I expected, but pretty useful. Kept me from dying, after all."

"But now we have to figure out how to permanently stop Cha-Cha and Jack," Allison says as Mom enters the room with a towel, and hands it to a thankful Diego. "Because clearly Ben's monster powers didn't take them out entirely the last time they attacked."

"Well, Patch is saying that we need to know more information about Cha-Cha and Jack if we can expect to take them down," Klaus says, "We can't rely on us all just sprouting new abilities at rather convenient times. So, Five, my little man- you got any info that would be helpful?"

Five looks the most pissed off he's been since they started going to the diner. "All I know is the basic info anyone in the Commission would know,” Five says, “The strict base facts about him and the few rumors that I picked up from the occasional assassin I met along the way."

"So spill, man," Diego says, and Luther's pretty sure that if Diego had the ability to, he'd take down both Cha-Cha and Jack all on his own- he's certainly angry enough.

"Well, he’s Jack the Ripper, first off.”

“Wait,” Vanya says, “ _The_ Jack the Ripper?”

Five nods, lips thin. Luther takes it as a sign of growth that he’s not rolling his eyes at the question. "Yeah. He's notorious for taking the cases that are rumored to be challenging, the ones that no one else wants to do."

Klaus snorts. "No wonder he took ours." He glances to the side. "Oh, fuck off, Ben, I know Diego just nearly died but I can still joke." Then he looks to the other side. "Sorry, babe."

Luther suddenly realizes just how crazy his family would look to anyone who doesn't know them, and he has to admit that he doesn't care. He loves his family.

"But back to the case at hand," Five says, tone a bit sharp but not entirely biting. "Cha-Cha's weakness is a blind adherence to authority, and Jack's is probably the opposite. He's a bit of a wildcard, with a record that displays his ability to think more creatively."

"Well, we're not gonna let them get away with it," Vanya says, and Luther realizes that there is no music playing and yet her eyes are already glowing. "I'm not going to let any of you die."

Now, Five's theory about power upgrades and all seems to be holding water. Diego can breathe underwater, Klaus can make the dead corporeal and use Ben's powers, and Five can time travel. Luther's not sure how Vanya or Allison could upgrade any further, considering that Vanya can cause an Apocalypse and Allison can manipulate reality, but he wonders how he could possibly upgrade, what kind of powers he could acquire.

But what Luther knows is that regardless of rather or not he can upgrade, he never wants to see any of his siblings die. He never wants to again feel the fear that had coursed down his spine when he saw Allison's throat slashed, when he thought Diego was going to die, when he saw Vanya crying. 

All Luther wants to do is protect his siblings-  _all_ his siblings. And he may not be the leader anymore, may have softened and become less of a superhero, but he will never stop in his mission to keep his family safe.

"Then let's get started on a plan of defense," Luther says, and everyone looks to him. "Five, you know the most about Cha-Cha and Jack- you take point. We're going to figure out a way to keep this whole family safe. We're not going to let any more of us get hurt."

To his shock, he sees the same look on Five, Allison, and Diego's faces- one of pride. He's never seen that before, and to be honest, he doesn't think he's ever felt anything that makes him happier.

"You heard the man," Allison says with a smile. "Let's get to work."

 


	9. Jack: gonna fight 'em all (seven nation army couldn't hold me back)

_There are no heroes..._

_in life, the monsters win._

**-George R. R. Martin**

 

On October 1, 1989, forty three women around the world gave birth simultaneously, despite none of them showing any sign of pregnancy at the beginning of the day. It is a well-known fact that Reginald Hargreeves, most peculiar of billionaires, acquired seven of these children.

But what became of the rest?

Of the thirty six that remained, twenty five died immediately, from various circumstances- the cold, being born in water, lack of nutrition, bad births where a c-section was the only thing that could have helped but couldn't be accomplished.

Of the the eleven that remained, five got put up for adoption and were lost in various foster systems.

One child, born to a nomadic Romani woman in the middle of nowhere, was never discovered by Hargreeves. Another, born to a woman on a yet-to-be-discovered Pacific island, was also never found. One, whose ability manifested itself as just an extreme talent for songwriting, went her whole life without realizing her powers.

The remaining three of them disappeared. One of the children had the ability to manipulate time loops and accidentally, in the third day she was born, sent herself and two others hurtling through time. She landed in Ancient Pompeii, where she was adopted by a Roman centurion and his wife and ended up being buried by ash from a volcano.

Of the two that were also transferred into the past, one landed in the Mayan empire a decade before the Spanish Conquistadors were set to conquer Mexico. She ends up dying of smallpox a few years after the conquistadors arrive, her Gift for accelerating the growth of plants not helping her against the onslaught of disease.

The last one was transported to 1874, where he was found and placed in an orphanage. The nun who picked him up off the front stoop looked at the child, eerily quiet, and later told the other nuns that he sent a chill down her spine.

The child came to be named Jack.

-

(This is the story of little Number Eight, who did not even know he was Number Eight, and how he turned himself into a weapon even when Reginald Hargreeves didn't have a chance to get to him. This is a boy who got a name but not a family, who was always a bit wrong and never had siblings to help him get better. He was raised in a run-down orphanage, witnessing the horrors of child labor and industrialization and the ravages of tuberculosis.

This is about a boy that slipped through the cracks of an orphanage, who only stood out in the fact that when he left the orphanage at age fourteen, not a single soul noticed his absence.

This is a story about a boy who grew up to be an assassin just like a boy that might have been his brother, but with one very, very important difference in motivation.) 

- 

Jack has never really cared about any one his whole life.

He's not a sadist, technically; he does not take pleasure in others’ pain. Rather, from a young age he has taken an interest in how people react to torture, cataloging what works best and what doesn't work when trying to achieve the goals he wants.

And what's rather useful for his experiments (specifically in allowing him to conduct a number more experiments than nature would have allowed him to originally), is the strange Gift he has always had. He's never been entirely certain where his Gift came from, but he's not complaining. 

He's always been able to sense emotional vulnerabilities in the people around him. He knows, by looking at a person, what their number one fear is. It's always been a rather interesting experiment, figuring out how to manipulate and hurt people based off of the vulnerabilities he senses.

And then when Jack hits age sixteen, he figures out how to sense what the weakest point on a person's body is, is able to instinctively know the easiest way to kill someone.

This leads to an even further expansion of the kinds of experiments he can accomplish. 

-

Jack is collected by the Commission at age 17, after he’s killed thirteen women, and over the next eight years he becomes known around the Commission as one of the most successful temporal assassins around. His 'gift' certainly helps, he's not going to lie.

Then he comes to learn about the Apocalypse case. It’s kinda legendary, amongst operatives and case workers alike: the only record of an employee of the Commission going rogue and not only getting away with it, but trying and succeeding at fucking up another major event.

Those in charge never talk about it, but the rumors still circulate. Jack hears of Five, about his impressive kill count, about the way he was able to take out Cha-Cha and Hazel, some of the highest ranking assassins in the Commission. Most specifically, he hears about Five’s powers, about his ability to teleport without a briefcase. Jack hears about about a group of people, living in the modern day, fucking up any attempts by the Commission to kickstart the Apocalypse back into being by using powers of their own.

Most operatives are avoiding the case with everything they can. No one wants a failure on their record, after all. The risk is too great, despite the payoff being able to say that you maintained the greatest Event in recorded human history.

So Jack volunteers to be Cha-Cha’s new partner. Why wouldn’t he? He’s only with the Commission because they provided him with an opportunity to learn as much as he could about the world and how his ability could be utilized- his rate of success and failure on _their_ terms doesn’t really mean much to him.

Jack wants to see just how much damage he can cause, even indirectly; the Apocalypse is certainly a challenge to take on. There isn't much bigger an experiment one can conduct, after all, than the destruction of the world itself.

And so once he gets to the site, it's easy to isolate out the necessary variables for this experiment. The Commission's scant directives have led him to conclude that Vanya Hargreeves is the center of the Apocalypse, what with the abilities Cha-Cha and he have recently discovered.

The Commission's instructions to kill Five won't do anything to cause the Apocalypse, now- his damage has been done. He's prevented the original start date. Now the point is to trigger Vanya's powers.

Cha-Cha's got a good point about how Vanya Hargreeves' current vulnerabilities seem to be her siblings, and the conclusion follows easily from this observation: they have to take out the Hargreeves siblings.

The point of their mission is to anger Vanya, so she can’t be a victim. Ben and Diego don't work on the first and second time they try, and so they determine to try a different siblings.

Five, from Jack's current observations, is going soft in his young age. His family, described by Cha-Cha as a previously a dangerously powerful motivator, is now his weakness. He's spending too much time talking and hanging out and hugging them, and not enough time training. He's pulling the foolish move of letting his guard down too much, and soon enough he'll be easy enough to take out.

But for now, he's still a pretty legendary assassin. They won't be able to take him on now, but soon- Five's biggest fear is losing his family. If they leave him for second to last, then they should be able to absolutely destroy him. 

But for now, Cha-Cha and Jack narrow down the best possible targets to Luther, Klaus, and Allison. 

Luther's only got super strength, not much else, and as long as they keep Klaus sedated, he won't be able to summon his brother. The same trick will work to keep Allison from using her powers, as well.

Time for the next attempt, and this time, Jack won't let this go wrong.

All of the Hargreeves siblings are going to die, and the world  _is_ going to end. He's going to make sure of it, and after all, he's never failed before.


	10. Allison: miss atomic bomb

_Heroic ambition seemed to have been the cause of much of the world's pain then- quite like it is now._

_No villain ever saw himself a villain: he only saw himself a hero;_

_and this goes just as no hero ever saw himself a hero: he simply did what he had to do._

_No true hero initially sets out with intentions of being deemed a hero._

**― Criss Jami**

 

It is generally assumed by nearly every member of the Hargreeves family- and the various employees of the Commission- that since the Apocalypse went down the first time around as a result of Vanya’s unchecked powers, that the only way to restart it is for her to lose control.

This is a rather sound theory, and would have continued to be a sound theory, if everyone’s powers had remained the same as they were in childhood. If Klaus had only been able to see ghosts rather than summon them into corporeal form, if Five hadn’t been able to time travel, if Diego couldn’t breathe underwater, and so on, then perhaps the only key to the Apocalypse- or at least, an extreme change to the Earth as it is currently known- would have stayed locked in Vanya Hargreeves’ mind.

But this is a superhero story, if a story told about superheroes long after they have stopped saving the world. This is a story in which powers grow and evolve, where an origin story turns into a series of heroic acts turns into early retirement. This is a story with powers that know themselves, that continue to grow long after the hero stops saving the world.

The Apocalypse doesn't depend on Vanya Hargreeves- it depends on the actions of Reginald Hargreeves and the damage he caused.

The first, maybe second time around, the Hargreeves siblings finished Reginald Hargreeves' destruction of each other. But this time around? With Vanya in control of her powers and the Hargreeves family getting along and learning to heal?

The Apocalypse is still not entirely off the table. Vanya's Apocalypse, yes. But someone else's? Perhaps, if their powers are pushed to their limits.

-

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Allison Hargreeves.

-

For much of her life, Allison Hargreeves had everything handed to her, and what was not handed to her, she had only to ask for. Her powers gave her whatever she wanted, with almost no limitations save the ones that her father imposed.

From an early age, it was drummed into her that the only people she shouldn’t use her powers on were Pogo and her father. The rest of the world was on-limits, as long as she did what her father asked. Even her siblings were fair game, and though she rarely used her powers on them- usually, only after they used theirs on her, like when Five popped in near her unexpectedly, or Diego's knife flew a bit too close to her face- she  _did_ use them.

It was no surprise that a growing teenage girl who, of all of her siblings, had always wanted most to leave the mansion, would take her power and use it to bend people to her will. 

-

Allison has always wanted a child to raise as her own, despite the fact that she’s never had any urge to have sex. So when she's twenty five, she applies for an adoption and goes searching for someone to help her raise her soon-to-be child. All children need a father and a mother, right? After all, that's why Dad got Mom for Allison and her siblings.

And so thus comes Patrick, a perfect father and husband who will kiss her and Claire to sleep.

It's not a strange idea to her. She used her Rumor to get the job she'd dreamed of, the fame she'd wanted, the money and trip to L.A. A child and a husband, even one she doesn't exactly love like a wife usually loves her husband, are not that far out of her reach.

-

And then Claire came along, and years later the divorce, and soon enough Allison was left without a child or a husband and-

And she realized, staring at the divorce papers, which spell out  _emotional manipulation_ and  _toxic relationships_ that she's fucked up. She's crossed a line that she never should have even gotten near.

(Once, when she was a kid, she rumored Klaus into just  _shutting up_ after he wouldn't stop screaming after a training session with Dad. Once, when she was a kid, she rumored Vanya into forgetting something- what it was, Allison can never quite remember. Once, when she was a kid, she rumored her siblings into not worrying and crying when Five disappeared.

Dad always called her a selfish child, and she's starting to realize that he's not exactly wrong.)

Allison sits there, and she stares at the divorce papers, and she realizes that there is something wrong with what she's done- to Claire, to Patrick, to everyone she's ever Rumored. She's not sure what exactly she did was wrong, but you can't exactly be accused of  _emotional abuse_ and not have done something fucked up.

So she signs the divorce papers, agreeing to visitation rights once a month- she loves Claire so much, but she's got to figure out what the fuck she's done- and acquires a therapist. Over the course of the next few months, this is when she starts to learn the horrible truth behind everything's she's done. This is when she learns to hate herself for what she did.   
  
Allison is a mother and a sister and an actress and a superhero and a  _villain_.

Here is what she has to realize. She has to recognize that she fucked up, that she made the absolute worst decisions and ruined other people's lives just to advance her own desires.

She can't delude herself into believing that what she did- controlling people's minds, forcing a man to love her, wiping her sister's memory- was anything a hero should have done.

(Something she'll think about later, after all the chaos is somewhat over: Vanya's Apocalypse was an accident; Allison's manipulations were a choice.)

-

When she arrives at the mansion for the funeral, she's still a famous actress. She's still Allison Hargreeves, the cover of a dozen magazines and the headliner of a dozen more movies. She's Allison Hargreeves, sister of Luther and Diego and Klaus and Vanya (and Ben, and Five, but they're long gone, tragedies mourned only distantly by the remaining Hargreeves and certainly not at all by the rest of the world).

But what she isn't is Allison Hargreeves, Rumor. She has sworn off using her powers. She can't be the villain of her siblings' anymore.

All Allison wants to do is to make up for what she did, who she broke, the world she made that she shouldn’t have.

-

When Allison was a child, Mom told them all stories. They were the routine fairytales programmed into her, ones like Cinderella and Aladdin and Little Red Riding Hood, but the original ones, the ones with women who danced themselves to death in iron-hot shoes and stepsisters with their eyes pecked out by birds and mermaids who turned to sea foam.

Allison always remembers the one about the Pied Piper, about the man who took a village's children away with his song. When she was a little kid, she always thought of herself as the Piper. She always thought that there would always be a way out, that she would always emerge as the victor of the story.

(It's kind of telling that she never thought of the Piper as the villain of the story when she was a kid, but rather the hero, because she was the hero of her own story. It was only when she realized that she fucked up that she realized that he was the villain of the story, because she was the villain of her own.)

Now, though, she is realizing that she was never the Piper, but one of those children led away by a man who would eventually destroy them. Dad was the Piper, leading them to their own destruction, and she was never anything more than one of those children listening to that destructive music.

So now, she tries to be more than a victim or the Piper. She tries to do her best to make up for her mistakes and help out her siblings. She tries to help Vanya. She tries to get rid of Leonard.

But she's forgotten the moral of her childhood stories. She's forgotten what it's like to be that child, to be led away, to be fooled rather than the one doing the fooling.

It doesn't matter that Allison's trying to be a good person, now. She fucks up, just as she always does, because that's what villains do. That's what destroyers do.

(That's what scared little children do. They go into the gingerbread house, run away from their puppetmaker father, don't get the prince to kiss them and make them human. They run and they cower and they fuck up, because they're children and they never learned how to be the hero of their own story.)

-

But then they get Vanya out of that room in the basement- and Allison may have fucked up, she may have had villainous tendencies, but Dad was far worse than she ever was.

She has to remember this, as her family starts to recover and bond with each other. She has to remember that she's not the grand villain of this story. She's a victim just as much as they were-

But the thoughts keep haunting her and drawing her up short.  _Allison_ used her Rumor against them, changed their memories, made them her playthings. She didn't love them in the way she should have until it was too late.

-

"You know you can't blame yourself," Vanya says, a few weeks after the Apocalypse, after Klaus has brought Dave back and their family is starting to grow into an actual family.

"But I'm the one who Rumored you all," Allison says, "I had a choice."

Vanya sits down next to Allison on her bed. "Do you blame me for the Apocalypse?" Vanya asks, raising an eyebrow. Her voice stays its same quiet, nonthreatening self, but there's something about Vanya now that commands more respect than she did before. "Do you blame Luther?"

Allison shakes her head. "It wasn't either of your faults. You couldn't control yourself, and Luther was still dealing with Dad's death and trying to find a way to protect everyone. He may have went about it all wrong, but I don't blame him for trying."

"Then why do you blame yourself?" Vanya asks. "You Rumored me into forgetting because Dad told you to, and if you Rumored any of our other siblings because that was the only way you knew how to fix things as a child, then I don't blame you."

Allison thinks about that damn Pied Piper again, about Patrick, about her own daughter. She didn't exactly stop using her Rumor as soon as she left the house. She didn't stop being that villain.

"You're beating yourself up, aren't you?" a familiar voice comes from the door, and she turns to see Five, dressed in a t-shirt and flannel pants. They're not the pjs he wore as a child, the same pjs he's been wearing for ages since returning, and Allison has to wonder who took him shopping. Or maybe if he went alone, who knows? Allison wouldn't put anything past him. 

But she is starting to understand his limitations, just a little bit better, from the time she's spent with him since the Not-Apocalypse.

They went to the diner for the first time last week, the two of them and Diego, and they've got a second trip planned tomorrow. And Allison remembers why those dinners exist, how they started. Allison remembers the state she found Five in, the nightmares and the alcohol and all the murders he's dragged with him from his time travelling adventures into his life now.

Maybe she's not the only villain here. 

"You're an idiot for doing that to yourself," Five continues, carrying the experience of fifty plus years, of a lifetime alone with his mind. "Trust me, I should know."

And he does, she knows that. She knows that Five didn't take the Apocalypse well, spent forty years trying to reverse time and get back.

One of the first things he said when he got back to their time was "should have listened to the old man." He kept talking about how he'd messed up the equations, how he blamed himself- even if he didn't realize it- for a lot of what happened. Five is fifty-eight-years old, but there is still something in him, some broken thirteen-year-old boy who arrived in the Apocalypse, saw their dead bodies, and never quite recovered.

-

Dave is perfectly charming, the perfect partner for her often wayward but caring brother. He is obviously in love with Klaus, absolutely devoted to her brother. He has a certain wide-eyed innocence about their time that makes it easy to forget that he fought in Vietnam, that Klaus didn't meet him in some peaceful cafe but in the middle of one of the most vicious wars in modern history.

That perception of innocence is shattered, though, by the moment that fireworks go off nearby for St. Patrick's Day (the Irish Pub down the street gets  _really_ into the holiday, what can Allison say) and Dave grabs Klaus and yanks him behind him, raising his hands up as if pointing a gun at Allison's face.

(And Allison is so, so thankful that Vanya's currently another room, that her self-control over her powers aren't being tested by Dave's sudden threat.)

"Dave," Klaus says, voice shaking (because her brother, famous for his addiction and his laissez-faire attitude about the world, fought ten months in that war as well). "It's okay. We're not- we're not in 'Nam anymore."

Dave swallows. "Right. Sorry about that." He lowers his non-existent gun from Allison's face, and she wonders about the war that did that do Dave and Klaus' minds, that gave them each other while tearing them from the lives they once knew. 

- 

Allison’s voice is never going to be the same, she knows it. Her throat has physically healed, but her voice will always have that little rasp, her throat that small ache that will always remind her of how destructive Vanya can be, without realizing it.

But will her powers still work? She can’t be sure. She hasn’t tested them out since she swore them off.

And she's not sure she wants to. She can definitely fight hand-to-hand, she's got her siblings' powers on her side (including Ben and Vanya's, nowadays), and she's been walking around with a knife in her heeled boots since the not-Apocalypse. She doesn't need her powers, and it's so fucking hard to avoid what horrible things she did with them. She doesn't want to know what she can do now.

But she can't ignore the loss of power having no voice had given her. Removing the choice of being able to use her powers entirely had definitely set her on edge. 

(Allison knows that she's had the easiest life out of any of her siblings, and she knows that it has everything to do with her powers. It has everything to do with how she could make people do anything she wanted with just a word, could make them forget or remember things they never would have otherwise. 

But then she was made mute for a few weeks, and she suddenly understood what it was like to lack even the ability to escape.)

She has the ability to use her powers again, with the use of her voice, but she doesn't want to feel hopeless again. When she'd lost her voice, she'd lost even the possibility of using her powers. She'd lost her way of communicating with her daughter, lost the ability to even perform her own job. She can't be that helpless again.

So Allison spends the night Googling, and she starts watching ASL tutorial videos. She watches them for the weeks up until they go to visit Claire, trying to learn the grammar and the intricacies of the language. 

She's got a bit of a leg up when it comes to learning new languages- dear old Dad forced them all to learn English, Latin, and one other language of their choice (Luther went with German, Diego with Spanish, Vanya with Latin, Ben and Klaus both went with Mandarin Chinese, Five with Japanese, and Allison with Creole French), but there are a lot of aspects to sign language that are a bit more difficult to process. After all, you can't listen to sign language and thus have the audio to back up the words on page.

But she has a goal that, for the first time that she can remembers, has nothing to do with manipulating other people or being selfish. It has to do with expanding people's understanding.

Why did she want to become an actress? Originally it was to escape her Dad, to leave the Academy, to find her own place. To earn fame, to see her name in lights; that was the goal.

But dig a little bit deeper, beyond the desires she had as a kid, the blinding lights of Hollywood enrapturing her eyes. Why did she continue?

She likes helping to communicate a story to people, to give them a way to tell their stories. Her childhood fairytales, translated to screen, giving people the stories she loved and hated in equal measure. A way to tell stories and express truth, if in a fictionalized way.

So this, learning sign language is a way to communicate better, a way to tell more stories, to talk to more people. It is a way to help people understand better, to give them another way to see things. 

-

Allison always wanted a daughter because the person she idolized most in life was not actually Reginald Hargreeves, but her Mom.

She was never as close with Grace as Diego was, she knows that. She spent most of her childhood wanting to get out of this place, not really focusing on who she was leaving behind. When she got out of the mansion, she tried to never look back at the place she came from.

But when she thought, sometimes, about the past- the only part of her childhood that she loved was the time she spent with Mom, the small things that Mom did for her. The magazines left on Allison's bed, the small knit bracelet with the stars weaved into the pattern, the gold embroidery on the inner lining of Allison's jacket. They were all the reminders of the star that Allison aspired to be.

So now, in the last few nights before they go visit Claire, before Allison sees her daughter again, she spends time with Grace. Allison ends up with Mom in the garden, working side by side weeding Mom's beloved flowers. Allison doesn't think she's ever seen Mom dirty before- Mom's always been perfectly neat, a picture of pressed lace and starched linen- but Mom seems pretty happy now, gloves in the dirt and an old pair of Allison's sneakers on her feet.

Mom hums as she works, a tune Allison thinks she picked up from Vanya that she thinks is...wait, is that twenty one pilots? Alright, that one might have been Diego or Klaus, not Vanya. Well, whatever it is, Allison gets used to it, a nice background tune that makes it easy to just slide into the repeated motions of weeding.

Eventually, though, the music is interrupted by Mom speaking. "The best thing I ever did in life was be your mother," Mom says, "But I must admit, it is nice learning to do things outside of you lovely children as well."

Allison watches Mom's deft fingers yank out weed after weed and she nods, understanding all the reasons Mom wants to learn things outside of the Umbrella Academy, to become something beyond just what Dad programmed her to do.

For a few minutes, they return back to blissful work. Allison really enjoys this sort of repetitive work, the sun on her skin, her hair pulled back and a tank top on. Though she's gotten to spend more time outside than Mom over the years, she's not really used to getting her hands dirty like this. Allison's pretty sure she likes it. 

"I also do love all the new family members I am getting to meet lately," Mom continues, "I knew you children would always get your happy endings."

Allison learned how to tell fairytales from Mom. She learned to tell stories without regard to violent endings, to tell bedtime stories about battles and heroes and villains and unhappy endings. Claire is the heir to Grace's fairytales, gruesome as they were. Allison's fairytales have different characters in them- the children of the Umbrella Academy as the main characters- but they carry the same themes.

(What makes a villain a villain? What makes a hero a hero? When both kill and hurt and die, both look for answers and try to save the things they love and reach for the things they want, where do you set the line?)

Grace doesn't tell them fairytales about death anymore. Instead, with her programming readjusting itself in a near-organic way, she tells them the same kind of stories that would have given Allison hope as a child, stories where the princesses escape their dragons and dragons become friends with mice. She tells them the kind of fairytales that Allison always acted out in movies without really understanding them.

She tells them stories with happy endings- a novel concept to the children of the man who raised them on warnings of the apocalypse.

"Someday," Allison says, "I want you to meet your granddaughter."

Mom looks up at Allison, a happy glint in her eyes. "I would love to meet your daughter, dear."

-

The night before they leave, Vanya and Ben decide to drag everyone into a dance in the main hall. It turns out to be pretty fun, actually, with everyone trading out partners throughout the night.

Vanya's mentioned once or twice that she has a song associated with each of them, and it seems like most of the songs that play Allison can figure out associations for as well. Right now the song playing is  _Nothing Matters When We're Dancing_ by the Magnetic Fields (but some new remix, Allison thinks it might have even come from some Netflix show or something or the like), which Allison knows for a fact has got to be Diego's as he had a hardcore Magnetic Fields phase (that he likes to pretend didn't happen) when they were kids.

Klaus and Dave seem to be in their own bubble, dancing around in some style that seems rather old-fashioned, but to them probably seems pretty modern (or at least to Dave it does, and Klaus seems way too happy dancing this way with Dave). Diego is dancing with Vanya, and Luther with Five (which Allison  _wishes_ she could take photos of, because it's the most hilariously tense yet relaxed dance she's ever seen).

Currently, Allison is dancing with Ben, who is certainly a far better dancer than she remembers him being at age twenty.

"Death did you well in the dancing skills realm," Allison says, and he gives her a wry smile.

"Didn't really help me in any other way," he says, and she feels just a pinprick of guilt. He's got a point there.

"Hope Dad's dance skills are forced to approve in the afterlife," she says instead, thinking of the Piper and the children dancing out of the town.

"Imagine him having to have fun," Ben says, and she tries, but she can't. All she can think of is Dad's stony expression and the time where Mom tried to get him to say goodnight to them but he didn't even look up from his work.

"Does it make me a bad person to say that I'm glad that he's dead?" she asks, looking at her kindest sibling.

Ben looks at her, and looks at their siblings, together and happy for the first time in their lives, and he shakes his head. "No, I don't think it makes you a bad person."

-

The next day, the door to Patrick's house opens to Claire and Patrick, Claire in front, dressed in a pair of jeans and red t-shirt (Patrick's been doing a really good job of taking care of her) and Patrick behind her, quiet suspicion in his eyes.

Patrick looks at them all over Claire's shoulders, probably noting the fact that Klaus is wearing one of Allison's skirts, Luther's giant stature, Diego's leather harness, Dave still wearing his army vest over top of normal clothing, and Five's continued insistence on wearing small suits on a constant basis. Ben and Vanya look pretty normal (easily hiding their least-ordinary powers), but it must look like Allison's brought the entire circus with her. 

"Claire," Allison says with a small smile. "I want you to meet your Aunt and Uncles."

Claire's eyes and smile are wide as she looks up at the seven people Allison's brought with her, and for a moment Allison readies herself to explain who everyone is. But then her daughter- her wonderful, brilliant daughter, smarter than Allison ever was- begins to identify everyone.

"You're Spaceboy, Uncle Luther," Claire says, pointing at Luther first. Fair guess- Luther's a giant among men, with an unmistakable overcoat.  

Her face is screwed up in thought and determination as she keeps going. "You're the Seance, Uncle Klaus," she says, pointing to Klaus, who is wearing his army vest over top of a pair of ripped black skinny jeans with a number of necklaces dangling from his neck.

"You're the Kracken, Uncle Diego," she says, moving onto the next Uncle, and the number of knives still attached to Diego's vest even after Allison told him _not to be conspicuous_ kind of gives that away.

Then Claire's gaze narrows on Five. "You're The Boy. But you're gone!"

"I'm back," Five says, and to Allison's (increasingly decreasing) shock, the smallest of smiles grows on his face. "And I go by the name Five."

Claire grins. "Uncle Five, got it!"

Then she turns to the last three of them- Vanya, Ben, and Dave, none of which have any identifying characteristics (at least not any from Allison's stories). And yet, to Allison's shock, Claire keeps going.

"Well, you must be Aunt Vanya," Claire says, then leans in a bit, cupping her hand around her mouth as if about to share a secret. "I don't have any powers either, Aunt Vanya, so don't worry."

Vanya smiles, her eyes growing a bit wet, and Allison nearly grins despite the fact that Vanya's powerlessness is kind of a thing of the past. She's so fucking proud of her daughter.

"I think you're the Horror, Uncle Ben," Claire says to Ben, "But you're dead."

"Well, so am I, young lady," Dave says, crouching down in front of Claire and offering out a hand to shake, and Allison can see Patrick's eyebrows raising. "But your Uncle Klaus brought us back for a little while."

Claire's face lights up. "That's awesome!"

Ben nods. "That's what I said."  

Claire turns so that she's looking between Allison and Patrick. "Mama, Daddy, can they all come in and play for a little while?"

Patrick looks at Allison, who gives him a small, hopefully reassuring smile. It  _is_ her weekend, but she understands his hesitance. She's never brought her siblings to meet Claire, and as far as Patrick knew the last time she saw him, Five was dead. And so was Ben.

So yeah, this is probably a bit much.

But Patrick nods. "Of course they can, sweetie," he says, and he smiles at Claire with such love in his eyes that it makes Allison's heart ache. Was that her? She doesn't think it was. She doesn't think she Rumored Patrick into loving Claire. She thinks that was entirely him, and she thinks that's why she let Claire almost entirely.

(Allison knows she could Rumor him into  _not_ loving Claire. She knows she could Rumor him into giving Claire up, into staying married, into loving her.

And if she was a different woman- if she was the woman Dad tried to raise her to be- she would have done it.)

-

It's only after Claire and all of her Uncles and Aunt are sitting in the living room, Claire keeping them enthralled with a story about, of all things, the invention of penicillin (her most recent hyperfixation, Allison is sure), that Patrick takes her aside to the hallway.

"Let me just tell you that I don't forgive you for fucking with my mind," Patrick says, expression firm but voice shaking just a little. "And the only reason I'm letting this happen is because Claire deserves to get to meet her Uncles and Aunts."

Allison refrains from mentioning the fact that she does, technically, have visitation rights and instead just nods. Patrick has a fucking point here, and everything that she's been trying to do to help redeem herself means nothing compared to what she did to him and his mind.

"I understand," Allison says, because she does. She really doesn't deserve any sort of custody of Claire, not even visitation rights, after Rumoring her daughter. But she's selfish and she wants to see her daughter so she doesn't say a word. That's why she didn't say a word, during the divorce proceedings. "I want to make up for what happened," Allison says, "I've sworn off using my powers entirely. I haven't used them since the divorce."

The shock in Patrick's face isn't a surprise, but it still kind of hurts even though she deserves it. "You do understand I can't trust you when you say that, right?"

She nods. "Definitely understandable."

He swallows, glancing into the living room, and she remembers how happy they used to be. She remembers that after Rumoring him for the first time (still unforgivable, that manipulation can never be excused, even if it only happened the one time), they had been truly happy with each other. She remembers the lovely dates, the cuddles on the sofa while they alternated watching their favorite movies ( _Harry Potter_ and  _Dreamgirls_ for her,  _When Harry Met Sally_ and  _The Departed_ for him), the trips to the zoo with Claire with Allison's hair wrapped up for a disguise.

They had been a family, for what it had been worth. They were happy, though it was a false sort of happiness. Allison did loved Patrick, and she still loves Claire.

(But what happened wasn't right, it was never right, and Allison has to accept that fact.)

His expression is conflicted as he says, "Claire  _does_ miss you. I may hate that she doesn't understand what you did, but you are her mother, for whatever that was worth to you."

Allison releases a long-held breath. "Thank you."

"I don't trust you, you gotta know, but maybe...well, maybe you can come over a little more often." Allison's heart surges in her chest and she tries not to cry from happiness. She never would have expected this, but she doesn't want to ruin it. "Maybe twice or three times a month instead of just the once. Still supervised, of course, but just a little more. For Claire."

She swallows and nods, not wanting to ruin this. "Of course. For Claire."

Maybe she can prove to Patrick that she can be trusted, that she has changed. Maybe she can prove that she is no longer the villain. Maybe she can no longer  _be_ the villain.

-

After a few weeks, they all move back to the mansion. The decision is hard one, as it means she'll only get to see Claire every few weeks, but she's used to that. And it's also not something she can easily change without years of trust-building between her and Patrick.

Something she  _can_ change, though, is making herself a better person. And she can do that by continuing to rebuild her relationship with her family.

So they go home, but then Cha-Cha and Jack show up, and Diego develops powers, and Allison's dealing with a whole host of new problems and the proof that some of Five's theories about power upgrades aren't as crazy as she'd once thought.

AS far as she can tell, Five's upgrade was the power to travel through time. Vanya's had to have been the ability to go from simply telekinesis to world-shattering destruction (and thank god they never had to see it in this timeline). Diego's is the ability to breathe underwater.

As for the others, well. Ben- he's dead, so she's not sure if his abilities can grow if he's dead. And Luther- well, most of his body is not his original DNA, so the ability to upgrade might have been lost as well.

Allison supposes that leaves her and Klaus,  _if_ Klaus' upgrade wasn't the ability to make ghosts go corporeal. Five's uncertain about that (which is driving him insane, not knowing the answers), but on the other hand, Five's theories on Allison's powers seem like they might be pretty rock-solid, though she hasn't tried them out yet because of that whole ethics-of-her-Rumor thing.

Well, for now, she doesn't really have to focus on that whole thing. For a few weeks, Allison's life passes by without too much conflict. She continues to go to the diner with her brothers, continues to hang out with Vanya, telling stories, continues to garden with Mom, continues to shop with Dave and Klaus. She makes a life here at the mansion, the kind of life she never got here as a child. She makes her room and her family at the mansion something not to run away from, but to run toward at the end of the day.

Things are tense, though, she can't deny that. They're waiting for another attack from Cha-Cha and Jack, and thought things seem calm, the fear of that attack is always at the back of her mind. She wants her family to stay safe.

They made it through what would have been the Apocalypse- they've gotta be able to make it through this.

-

Then Cha-Cha and Jack grab Klaus and Allison while they're shopping one day, and when Allison wakes up in a random hotel room she finds Jack there, flint-eyed and hands raised over her and Klaus, who is writhing on the floor in agony. Not that she can't relate- there is sheer pain scorching through her joints, shredding through the points on her body she knows are her most sensitive pressure points. Her weak knee, the base of her neck, her hips- they're all on fire.

She can barely think through the pain, but she knows that she's got to find a way to get the torture and the pain to stop. She's gotta use her powers, however she can.

But then she opens her mouth and finds that no words can come out.

Well, shit. Whatever Jack's using to hurt her and Klaus, to keep them incapacitated- it must be blocking her powers. (And it must be blocking Klaus' as well- that must be why Ben isn't here, using his monsters to save her and Klaus.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. They're torturing Klaus and she can't do a fucking thing if she doesn't get her powers to work. She has to find a way to somehow access her Rumor. A way to bring the words about, to communicate her-

Oh, shit. Allison's got it. 

"I heard a Rumor," her hand signs, her fingers creaking with pain as they move. The world bubbles in front of her hands. But this time, instead of stopping a few feet in front of her body, the force of her Powers keeps going and going until for a moment, the entire world seems to be held still in the sway of her powers. "That you don't have any way to hurt us."

(Not that Jack forgot that he had a way to torture them, or even that she heard that he was stopping hurting Klaus- no, that he'd lost his abilities entirely.) 

Instantly Klaus slumps to the ground, sucking in gasps of breath, and Jack's gaze focuses on Allison as the breath returns to her lungs as well. He doesn't seem too perturbed by the loss of the weapons from his belt and whatever was hurting them, but she could be reading him wrong.

"So your powers have advanced, haven't they?" Jack asks, and Allison doesn't know how he knows about the powers-advancing thing.

 

Klaus levers himself up from the floor, just a little bit, clearly still fatigued. She is, too, pain wracking her body as she moves. Whatever Jack did- the powers he somehow has, the tech he's somehow used- it's left massive damage.

"How do you know?" Klaus croaks.

"Your brother's not exactly casual about his theories," Jack says, gaze still unnervingly on target, expression still stone cold. 

Allison can feel the words on the tip of her tongue.  _I heard a Rumor that you were dead_.

She tried that once, as a kid, on one of her first missions. It didn't work then.

But now- she feels that it just might. If Five's theories hold true- and when has her brother's theories ever  _not_ held true (save his transportation into a child-like body, but that's one fluke in fifty eight years)- then her words should have the power to bend physical reality around her.

But should she? 

She's never killed a man before. Vanya, Five, Luther, Diego, Ben- they all have. But their powers are direct- hers are not. If Allison spoke it, she could decide how he died, but if she just said  _I heard a Rumor that you died_ , would that be ethical?

Well, of course not. Killing people isn't ethical. That's gotta be the most basic rule of ethics ever.

(But then again, that's never stopped her family before. And does that make them villains, too? Does that make them as bad as she is?)

Then Jack raises his hand, something shiny and metallic and sharp in it, and Allison knows she doesn't have a choice.

(Sometimes the villain becomes an anti-hero, saves the world instead of destroying it, and their morals are still shaky but they're doing better. Their reasons are better.)

(Sometimes you have to kill a man to save the world. Or, at the very least, save the people you love.)

"I heard a Rumor," she says, power rising in her throat as the knife flies, "That you died."

-

There was once a story about a woman who destroyed the world she lived in, who turned herself into the greatest weapon the world had ever seen. She killed her family because they couldn't show they cared about her, destroyed the mansion they lived in, created an Apocalypse that her brother had to survive for forty years.

Her sister has a moment, here, to recreate that Apocalypse. She certainly has the powers to do so- she can speak anything into being, wield death and life with her words.

But she won't. In this story, there are seven family members who would destroy the world to save their family, not one girl who will destroy the world to destroy her family.

In this story, the Pied Piper puts down her pipe for her family and only picks it back up to defend them. In this story, the Pied Piper isn't a villain but instead just a woman, who under very different circumstances may even have become a hero.

-

"Holy shit," Klaus says, getting up off the ground. His every movement is labored, agony clear in the way his joints practically creak as they move slowly, but he's grinning. Allison thinks, distantly, that he really shouldn't be so happy about the corpse on the ground, but that's really the least of her problems. "You just killed him."

Allison nods. "Turns out we all really do have some upgrades on our powers."

Klaus nods. "Alright, then. We should probably get back to the house. Keep the others from freaking the fuck out."

Allison realizes that since Jack somehow cut off Klaus' powers for a moment, Patch must have disappeared from Diego's side. Their siblings must have some idea of what's going on and are trying to save them.

(Well, they're gonna be a bit late to the party.)

"Should we get rid of the corpse?" Allison asks. 

"Cha-Cha'll take care of it, right?" Klaus answers, and she swears under her breath.

"Fuck, I forgot about Cha-Cha." She takes a quick glance at her brother, who is brushing off his clothes- his skinny leather pants, a purple silk button-down, and that now all-too-familiar army vest. The Army. Well, shit. Klaus was a soldier in Vietnam- not exactly a strategist, but not exactly unfamiliar with battle either. "What do you think she might have been up to while Jack worked on us?"

Klaus shrugs. "I'm sure once we tell Five about the whole thing he'll probably take care of Cha-Cha himself."

Allison's not sure she wants that to happen. She knows she can't really protect Five- he's an fifty-eight-year-old assassin with far more kills under his belt to her  _one-_ but that doesn't mean she wants him to go back to how he used to be. He's been doing pretty well nowadays, without being an assassin, without murdering people. Does she really want to put her brother back into that life again? She knows that he would have no inhibitions when it comes to taking care of Cha-Cha, but she doesn't think he deserves getting thrust into that violence again. She's seen his alcoholism and his nightmares- she really hates the idea of sending him back into that self-destructive state.

There's really a simple solution, here- Allison could speak Cha-Cha into death. She could kill Cha-Cha as easily as she did Jack, could prevent Five from having to return to his assassin's ways.

Can her Rumor work without a person to work on? She knows that it can now manipulate biology itself- can it manipulate space?

(Does she want to try it? Does she want to risk sliding into villainy again? Can she handle being the Piper, for whatever that may mean? Can she handle the utter power her words now hold?)

"I heard a Rumor," Allison says experimentally, ignoring Klaus' raised eyebrow. "That Cha-Cha was right in front of us."

"Fuck, Allison-" is all Klaus can yelp before Cha-Cha pops into being right in front of them, a very conspicuous container of gorilla tranquilizer in her hands. 

Anger boils in Allison's stomach- there is only one reason she could need such a thing as gorilla tranquilizer- Luther. Cha-Cha was on her way to do to Luther what Jack was just doing to Allison and Klaus.

"How the fuck did you do that?" Cha-Cha asks, raising an indignant eyebrow, and Allison's kinda scared by her own power but is also kind of proud of it at the same time.

"You brought the assassin here?" Klaus asks, rather nonplussed by said assassin. Allison's pretty sure that's gotta be from his previous encounter with Cha-Cha that he told Allison about, the one in the hotel.

"I heard a Rumor," Allison starts, but she's not entirely sure how she wants to finish that. Does she want to repeat what she just did? Jack was attacking them- Cha-Cha is currently not doing anything. Self-defense doesn't apply here as an ethical defense.

Allison is trying to be a good person, here. She's trying not to be a villain. She may have just killed a man, but she doesn't want to again.

But she has to save her family, one way or another, and there has to be an answer for that. There has to be a way not to kill Cha-Cha as, despite her past crimes, she has no weapon in her hands right now.

"I heard a Rumor," Allison says, hoping that she can stop herself from continuing to use this power in anything but the most emergency of situations. "That you forgot you were an assassin."

Cha-Cha's face goes slack and the tranquilizer container clunks out of her hand. She then keels forward and collapses, and well, Allison wasn't expecting that reaction to her Rumor, but it did the job.

(And _d_ _amn_ , Allison almost wishes that she'd been willing to use her Rumor before as it would have solved a  _lot_ of issues.)

"Well, fuck," Klaus says, "Now what are we going to do with the bodies of  _two_ assassins?"

"Yeah,  _now_  Five can deal with this," Allison says, already feeling the leftover pain starting to drain away. A couple of Ibuprofen and the pain should be gone. Five and Diego can deal with Cha-Cha's unconscious body and Jack's corpse, and everything should be nearly back to normal. 

(She nearly laughs at that. "Normal"- she doesn't think anyone in this family has ever known what that word means.)

"Let's call them and then go home," Klaus says, and she nods.

- 

They all end up in the downstairs dining room that night, Five's precious coffee and Vanya's favorite brand of tea being passed around. For once, Five isn't complaining about people taking his coffee- instead, he seems almost relieved that Klaus and Allison are both okay.

Though Klaus is smiling and joking like always, Klaus is pressed up close to Dave's side, hands intertwined on Klaus' lap. Klaus seems fine, but Allison has a feeling that tonight is going to be a night in which Klaus and Dave collapse into bed, curled around each other in comfort instead of sexual interest.

Patch sits next to Diego with her boots in his lap, and Luther is currently talking to Mom and Pogo about something at the end of the table. Allison's sitting with Five on one side and Diego on the other, Vanya across from her. They're a chaotic mess, that's clear to see.

It's not perfect, but it's family. It's a family that repaired itself after it was built broken by the man who created it. It's not a family of heroes or villains. It's just a family of children who are finally growing up.

-

(Outside, at the edge of the property, a small pile of rubble that sits where a statue of Reginald Hargreeves once stood. Jack the Ripper's body is gone, taken to a burial site by Cha-Cha, and Harold Jenkins' body is long ago cremated.

The physical demons haunting the Hargreeves' family are gone. Now all that's left to do is to create lives for themselves.)

-

So Allison takes her cup of coffee from Five, gives him a smile of thanks, and then leans back in her seat. She is here, among family, and that's a plenty good happy ending to her. Three of the people here are dead, two are at least part-ape, one's a robot, one can't die, one once caused the Apocalypse, one spent half a lifetime being misgendered, one spent four decades alone in the Apocalypse, and Allison herself, well, she just killed a man.

Some might call them monsters and villains and maybe even heroes, but Allison- she just calls them her family. 

At the end of the day, this isn't a story about how the Hargreeves siblings failed. This isn't a story about a woman standing alone at the end of the world, destroying everything because she has nothing left. This isn't a story about a Piper and the children who followed him to their doom.

This is about a woman who was a hero who was a villain who was just a girl, trying to make what she could out of the world. This is about a family that finally stands together and refuses to fall together.

"Hey, Allison," Diego says, turning to face Allison just slightly, and she lowers her cup from her lips. He holds up his mug to her. "Good job."

She clinks her mug against his. "Thanks," she says with a smile, and for the first time in her life she feels unconditionally proud about her abilities and why she's used them.

Here's to the future of the Hargreeves family and whatever that entails, daughters and boyfriends and girlfriends and robot moms and ape butlers and powers growing and time travel and yeah, this life is never going to be normal. She's never going to go back to the quasi-normal life she lived with Patrick and Claire, without super-powered siblings and loved ones brought back from the dead.

(And Allison has to admit that she kind of likes that.)

"You think Klaus' upgrades will show up before Alyssa visits next week?" Vanya asks after taking a sip of her tea.

Allison shrugs, looking down the table at her brother, whose smile is slowly growing back into its usual lazy confidence. Klaus is safe (enough) now, and who knows what's going to happen next week in regards to powers? With this family, anything can happen.

Well, whatever happens, Allison's looking forward to it.

The Piper is dead. His children remain, trying to find their own way in the world. And yeah, they're making mistakes, but they're creating a happy ending for themselves. And god, that's got to count for something.

And if it doesn't, well- Allison's going to _make_ it count for something.

 

_And I'll build a fire, you fetch the water and I'll lay the table_

_And in our hearts, we still pray for sons and daughters_

_And all those evenings out in the garden, these quiet hours turning to years_

_And it's all to come, for now we're still young_

_We're just building our kingdom, but it's all to come_

  **-Allman Brown**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for sticking with me this whole time! I had so much fun writing this series, and though I hope to write more for this, the main story is
> 
> It seems like Umbrella Academy has helped me accomplish the previously (at least at the personal level) impossible: finishing series. Twice over this has happened (once for this series, and the other for the Hunger Games AU), and it's kind of amazing.


End file.
